11/30/2007Former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya and his wife, Sachiko, were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of taking bribes from a defense contractor. The prosecutors' action came about two weeks after Moriya, in his testimony as a sworn witness before an Upper House committee, declared, "If I really deserve criminal punishment, I have no intention of trying to escape it."
More than a month has passed since it was first revealed that Moriya had been lavishly entertained with golf outings by Motonobu Miyazaki, a former executive of Yamada Corp., a defense equipment trading company. The corruption scandal over defense contracts, whose dimensions have continued to grow amid fresh revelations, reached a critical moment with the arrest of the former top defense bureaucrat for alleged bribery.
Moriya and his wife were arrested on suspicion they accepted 12 free golf trips--valued at nearly 4 million yen--as a reward for conspiring to help Miyazaki with his company's supply of defense equipment to the then Defense Agency.
Miyazaki left Yamada and created his own defense trading firm, Nihon Mirise Corp. Moriya allegedly used his influence to make sure that Mirise would win contracts to supply General Electric Co. engines for use in the Air Self-Defense Force's next-generation C-X aircraft without having to compete with other suppliers in bidding.
Yamada once overcharged the government for the delivery of equipment, but was not disciplined. Moriya is suspected to have played a role in protecting Yamada's business dealings with the Defense Agency.
In addition to allegations concerning equipment procurement, Moriya is also believed to have asked business leaders to help raise funds for Mirise. Revelations also emerged that Moriya entrusted a subordinate with 45 million yen for investment. But the truth remains unclear.
Approximately 2 trillion yen of taxpayer money is spent every year on a wide range of defense equipment, from military planes to uniforms. Details of this huge spending, however, are invisible to the public because of a wall of confidentiality. How was the system for defense procurements, which have direct bearings on Japan's national security, abused because of the top official's collusive ties with a contractor? To answer this question, prosecutors need to delve deep into the corrupt nexus of politicians, bureaucrats and special interests.
Yamada is believed to have pooled a huge slush fund. Who, other than Moriya, received cash from the company?
What is particularly important is Yamada's ties with politicians. In his Diet testimony, Moriya revealed that two former defense chiefs, Fumio Kyuma and Fukushiro Nukaga, were present along with himself at a dinner with Miyazaki. Kyuma has said that might have happened. But Nukaga, who is currently finance minister, has strongly denied attending such a dinner. However, he has admitted that Yamada purchased tickets for his fund-raising parties worth 2.2 million yen in total.
As part of their investigation into the scandal, prosecutors also searched Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, which had ties with Kyuma, Nukaga and Miyazaki as a member. It is an organization effectively operated by a person known for serving as a mediator between the political community and the defense industry. One question that should be answered is whether there is a structure of corruption involving politicians and defense businesses.
Why do Japanese have to keep hearing story after story of corruption and misbehavior involving top bureaucrats? The Recruit stocks-for-favor scandal in the late 1980s brought down the former top officials of the labor and education ministries. And a separate scandal concerning subsidies to special nursing homes for old people led to the arrest of a former vice minister for health and welfare.
The lessons from these scandals have apparently been lost on the nation's bureaucracy. A logical conclusion is that the bureaucratic system has some innate elements that breed corruption.
Moriya, who served as vice defense minister for four years, must know the ins and outs of the collusive relations between the bureaucracy and the defense industry. The only and best public service he could do now is to reveal the dirty secrets about this noxious sump and help clean up the rot of vested-interest.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 29(IHT/Asahi: November 30,2007)
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