A Japanese ruling party member of parliament resigned from his post as a deputy minister on Friday after allegations that he accepted bribes from a wind power company, dealing another setback to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Tokyo prosecutors raided the office of ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Masatoshi Akimoto on suspicion that he took bribes amounting to tens of millions of yen, according to public broadcaster NHK.
The foreign ministry later announced that Akimoto had stepped down from his post as a vice minister.
Calls to Akimoto's office went unanswered. Government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno declined to comment saying that Akimoto had not spoken to him about the issue.
The resignation comes after Kishida's approval rating slid to its lowest since he took office in 2021. Public frustration with him and his government centres on a proposal to integrate tax and social security data into a single identification card.
Errors that have recently come to light with the card have included health insurance information linked to the wrong social security account and welfare payments made to the wrong person.
A Yomiuri newspaper poll in July found that approval for the Kishida administration had dipped to a low of 35%. The same poll found 52% of respondents did not support the government.
State broadcaster NHK and other media have reported that Tokyo prosecutors suspect Japan Wind Development Co paid bribes to Akimoto.
The Tokyo-based company declined to comment, referring questions to its lawyer. Reuters was not able to reach the company's lawyer for comment.
A lawyer representing the company's president denied bribery, the Sankei newspaper reported.
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023.
7 Comments
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Ricky Kaminski13
Wind is gunna need to bribe their way into the new green deal by the sounds, not exactly the silver bullet for global warming it’s been sold as by more than a few accounts.
LDP corruption just means LDPs special sauce brand of polibusiness.
Scandals however, are a real political bomb for J politics, so expect fallout and fireworks, shuffling and much noise!
The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind.
Moonraker
Time to move the cabinet around again. That'll work.
Rodney
Jail?
dbsaiya
Vote LDP, you get LDP. He not only resigned from his post, but he also terminated his party membership with the LDP. He can still draw his pay and perks as a representative though; they just won't give that up, such a cush job. His constituents should start a recall and get his butt out of government, but they won't. And Japan will vote LDP again.
Paul
All these green things are not as green as they say they are, so bribing is necessary.
elephant200
In this photo, he seems being annoyed by the progress of his Indian partners!
CKAI
Sure is. The greasy wheels thing isnt news.
Can ya say "TARGET" much?
Almost like dont like Wind power so…fall guy falls
Never saw top guy goes out front page, no one week heads up, we're comin for the home raid, pack it up in advance...style unless… target.
Meantime back at Fuji Oil… golden platinum parachutes landed real softly hey?