MOF Discloses 4th Set of Moritomo Documents

Tokyo, Oct. 8 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Ministry of Finance on Wednesday disclosed a fourth set of documents related to a scandal involving school operator Moritomo Gakuen. About 25,000 pages of the documents in electronic form were provided to the widow of a MOF regional bureau official who committed suicide amid the scandal. In the scandal, the official, Toshio Akagi, then 54, was ordered to alter public records related to the controversial sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen. “I hope to understand his suffering,” Akagi’s widow, Masako, told reporters after receiving the fourth set of documents at the ministry. The latest set includes an email sent by a Kinki Local Finance Bureau official to another. In the email, the official argued that the West Japan Civil Aviation Bureau’s estimate of waste disposal costs related to the land sale could be viewed as preferential treatment for Moritomo Gakuen. The official also wrote that the ministry, the Kinki finance bureau and the aviation bureau could not remain unscathed after being involved in the land sale. The disclosure of the documents, totaling more than 170,000 pages, began in April, following a court ruling that overturned the ministry’s decision not to release them. At a press conference on Wednesday, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said that he expects the government under the successor to outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to continue the document disclosure. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]