Four senior officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan accepted a high-level banquet and gifts from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s eldest son, Masago Suga, which triggered public controversy. Minister of General Affairs Ryota Takeda said on the 19th that two high-ranking officials will be replaced and the officials concerned will be considered for punishment.
Takeda Ryota apologized for the mistrust caused by the banquet, saying that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will replace the Director of the Information Circulation Administration Bureau Yoshitoku Akimoto and the Deputy Director Hiroshin Yumoto on the 20th.
Takeda Ryota said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is considering punishing the officials involved, including the other two officials Yawaki Yasuhiko and Masato Yoshida who received the banquet.
The Japanese magazine “Weekly Bunharu” disclosed on the 3rd of this month that the four above-mentioned senior officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications received a banquet at a high-end restaurant in Tokyo from October to December last year, received gifts and taxi tickets, and failed to report to the civil servants’ ethics supervisory officials as required. Reported, suspected of violating Japan’s “National Civil Service Ethics Law.”
The Information Circulation Administration Bureau is in charge of the administrative examination and approval business related to television broadcasting, and is considered to have an interest relationship with the company that Suga serves. “Weekly Bunchun” recently exposed the recording of the conversation of Suga Masasu at the dinner of Akimoto. In the recording, Suga kept talking about satellite TV content.
Akimoto initially denied any relevant remarks. After the recording was exposed, he changed his slogan at a meeting of the House Budget Committee on the 19th, saying that he “may have said those words.”
Yoshihide Suga said that he did not know that his son was banning senior officials. When his father became the Minister of General Affairs in 2006, Suga Masasu served as Secretary of the Minister of General Affairs for approximately 9 months. Japanese media reported that Suga had met some of the four officials during this period.
