By Keiko Ujikane and Takashi HirokawaJune 24 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said he didn’t know whether money from a contributor was collected through a dummy corporation, and that he may return the funds if it turns out the donation was illegal.
The Mainichi newspaper today said Yosano received 55.3 million yen ($580,000) and former financial services minister Yoshimi Watanabe 35.4 million yen in political contributions from a group of five related companies through a dummy organization. The paper didn’t say where it got the information.
“I didn’t know how the political group collected money, and I didn’t feel the need to know about it at the time,” Yosano said in parliament in Tokyo. He said his fund-raising organization received 250,000 yen a month from a group headed by a former president of one of the companies from 1981 to 2005 and that the money was reported.
He told reporters later than he will decide whether to return the money after a determination is made on the legality of the donations. Asked whether he would resign over the issue, he said, “I’m not thinking of anything beyond that,” without elaborating.
The controversy comes as Prime Minister Taro Aso’s public support is slipping with less than three months to go before he must call a national election. Opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa quit in May over a campaign-finance scandal, and was replaced by Yukio Hatoyama.
About 250 executives at the five companies contributed about 40 million yen through yearly tax-deductible donations to the dummy group, the Mainichi said. Japanese campaign finance laws prohibit lawmakers from receiving corporate funds.
“We have absolutely no awareness of a group collecting money from employees,” Yosano’s secretary Ryoji Tsuchida said earlier today. “We never asked for such a thing,” he said, adding that Yosano doesn’t intend to return the donations.
Watanabe admitted receiving donations from the group, believing they were collected from private individuals, the newspaper said.
Tomomi Yamanouchi, a secretary in Watanabe’s office, said no one was available to comment.
To contact the reporters on this story: Takashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net; Keiko Ujikane in Tokyo at kujikane@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 24, 2009 05:45 EDT
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