Voice Data on Price Negotiation

Ministry of Finance retracted its former testimony in the Diet that the Ministry had not discussed actual price of selling government-owned land property in Osaka to Moritomo Gakuen, the educational corporation run by a right-wing supporter for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Yasunori Kagoike. It was proved that the Ministry referred to ¥130 million as the minimum price of the land in the negotiation with Kagoike based on a voice data. The Ministry employed a ridiculous reasoning that it was not an offer of the price.

It has been reported that Kagoike recorded the negotiation with the officer with Kinki Local Finance Bureau of Ministry of Finance in March 2016 before its appraised value was not determined. In the discussion, Kagoike demanded the price of the land for his new elementary school, which honorary principal was first lady Akie Abe, as close to zero as possible. The officer of KLFB promised his effort to meet Kagoike’s demand but said that discounting to less than ¥130 million was not realistic, because the Ministry had paid that amount of money for removing debris found underground. Actual price of “¥130 million” was definitely referred to in the recorded dialogue.

In the discussion in Budget Committee of House of Representatives on Monday, a lawmaker with Liberal Democratic Party, Isshu Sugahara, asked whether the conversation in the voice recording was true. Chief of MoF Financial Bureau, Mitsuru Ota, admitted that dialogue as true. But Ota introduced a strange explanation that the conversation had not been about the price for selling the land, but about the notion that the price lower than the cost of removing debris had been unlikely.

Former Chief of Financial Bureau, Nobuhisa Sagawa, made a testimony in March this year that the Ministry had not offered actual price and not received Kagoike’s demand on how much price was his preferred price. But the voice data proved that Kagoike had demanded a price “as close to zero as possible” and MoF officer referred to the price not less than ¥130 million. It is a long tradition that Japanese bureaucrats introduce unique theory that would not stand outside their world, which is called Kasumigaseki Literature.

The opposite parties accused MoF. Lawmaker with Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Tomoko Abe, defined that it was a negotiation over the price of the land and offer of actual price. Another Lawmaker, Akira Nagatsuma, required Prime Minister Abe to apologize to the people. Abe reiterated general notion that the government should not invite skepticism on selling government-owned land property and protected MoF as having been doing appropriate job.