Inappropriate Political Activities Spending

For surprise and deride for the people all over Japan, Toyama City Council lost eleven members out of all forty with money scandal. They admitted false use of official money called “political activity spending” and voluntarily stepped down as council members. Actually, the purposes of spending were having beer or playing golf, which had nothing to do with their political activities. Unfortunately, shame is not only on the council member of Toyama, but on many in other cities in Japan.

Each member of Toyama City Council accepts ¥150 thousand every month for their research, meeting or other activities necessary for their responsibility as representative for the people in the city. The resource for the spending is nothing but local tax paid by the residents. How that money was used should be strictly checked by city officials on behalf of the people.

First suspect on the council members was on former Chairman, Isamu Nakagawa, affiliated to a group of Liberal Democratic Party in July. Nakagawa added number on receipt paper for purchases, which would be submitted to the official, pretending to have used greater amount of money than actually paid. It was worth criticized as an illegal embezzlement. He instructed his colleagues to make the same trick and received a part of that illegal money.

Following LDP, the members of Democratic Party group also did the same things. One member demanded money for two meetings with his supporters, which had not actually been held. Another one added “2” on a receipt of ¥2,268 and demand ¥22,268 for purchase of candies or cakes for his office. Added “2” was obviously different shape from other “2”s on the paper.

The money for political activities is deposited on the account of council members, which is controlled by city officials. The member would submit receipt paper to the officials and receive cash from them. While the officials had many opportunities to block illegal receipts, they were not only reluctant to reveal the scandal, but even helped manipulation of receipt paper.

Among all 113 local assemblies, Toyama City Council was only one that completely spent whole budget for political activities. Taking advantage of opaqueness on purpose of money spending to guarantee freedom of political activities, the members of Toyama City Council exhausted the budget every year. It is only five councils, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Otsu and Setagaya, that disclose the spending for political activities on their webpage. Disclosure of information in local government needs to be improved.