Saturday, July 7, 2007 5:12 pm | 
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Farm Minister Akagi in emerging support group scandal
Farm Minister Norihiko Akagi’s support group “The Norihiko Akagi Support Group” had their main office registered in Akagi’s parents’ home in Chikusei, Ibaraki Prefecture, but the office seems to have been non-existant and suspicions are now arising that expenditures it filed have been misapprehended, Kyodo News, Asahi Shimbun, etc reports. This is the umpteenth scandal to hit the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who burdened by several recent scandals are trailing behind the opposition ahead of the July 29 upper house elections.
The support group submitted political funds reports to the Ibaraki prefectural election board, listing expenditures of some 76m yen (US$616,000) from 1998 to 2005, according to the Kyodo report.
But Akagi’s father told Kyodo, “I’ve never received any rent. My house has not been used as the office… I was not aware that my house had been registered as an office. There has been no staff member on duty and during past election campaigns, there were no activities.”
In spite of the father’s testimony, reports showed a total of 13.9m yen (US$112,632) had been registered as rent from 1998 to 2005. Other registered expenditures included 43.9m yen (US$356,000) as personnel costs, 6.7m yen (US$54,000) as utility costs and 11.5m yen (US$93,000) as “other miscellaneous costs”, according to the Kyodo report.
Akagi’s office has stated that although the support group did not pay any rent, it paid for “stamps, telephone bills, etc”. No explanation was given as to why such expenses were filed as “rent”. Akagi’s office also said that the group did not have any full-time employees but instead employed part-timers, according to the Asahi Shimbun report.
The emerging scandal bears an uncanny resemblance to the “water, lighting and heating”-scandal that hit Akagi’s predecessor Toshikatsu Matsuoka, which ended in his suicide and Akagi’s stepping into office. Toshikatsu’s office had filed some 5,07m yen (US$46,000) water, lighting and heating expenditures – despite the fact that the office was located in a rent-free building where tap water and electricity were free of charge. Matsuoka’s flimsy excuses and refusal to discuss the details of the fees enraged the public, and the mounting pressure eventually led to the minister committing suicide May 28.
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