Photo/Illutration Yasuhiko Taniwaki, a former high-ranking telecommunications ministry bureaucrat, attends the March 15 Upper House Budget Committee session. (Reina Kitamura)

A senior telecommunications ministry bureaucrat embroiled in wining and dining scandals has resigned, which opposition lawmakers are criticizing as an attempt to prevent him from being questioned in the Diet.

Yasuhiko Taniwaki, the former vice minister for policy coordination at the ministry, submitted his resignation on March 16, which was immediately accepted, officials said.

Taniwaki was shuffled out of the ministry’s No. 2 bureaucratic post on March 8, following revelations about his wining and dining from a second company.

Ryota Takeda, the communications minister, announced earlier on March 16 that Taniwaki had been suspended for three months in connection with being wined and dined by top executives of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.

Taniwaki was already getting a pay cut for being entertained by Tohokushinsha Film Corp., a satellite broadcasting channel operator, which counts among its employees the eldest son of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

At that time, Taniwaki claimed he had not been entertained illegally by other companies. But then came revelations about NTT executives also wining and dining telecommunications ministry officials, and Taniwaki faced a second round of disciplinary measures.

Another top official, Eiji Makiguchi, the director-general of the ministry’s Global Strategy Bureau, had his pay cut by 10 percent for two months for being wined and dined by NTT executives.

It came out that between 2018 and 2020, Taniwaki was entertained on three occasions by NTT President Jun Sawada and other executives. The meals cost about 100,000 yen ($920) per head.

At the March 16 Lower House Budget Committee session, the opposition questioned whether his resignation is a pre-emptive move to prevent more details from emerging about the scandal.

Yuichi Goto, of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, asked Takeda why he accepted Taniwaki’s resignation.

“If he resigns today, we will not be able to call him to the Diet in the future,” Goto said. “Isn’t this an attempt to silence him?”

Takeda responded, “He acted in a manner that caused extreme loss of trust about whether he could perform his duties, and it is very regrettable that such acts led to his resignation.”

When Goto continued questioning why Taniwaki’s resignation was accepted after he had been called to the Diet repeatedly in recent days, Takeda bristled, appearing perturbed over the insinuation about silencing Taniwaki.

“You should not be jumping to such a conclusion,” he responded.

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