THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
May 13, 2022 at 19:05 JST
Members of the panel of experts to investigate the land ministry’s statistics data falsification issue on May 13 (Hirotaka Kojo)
A panel of experts set up by the land ministry has found that the government falsely inflated construction contract data in 2020 by an estimated 3.6 trillion yen ($28 billion).
The panel was tasked with investigating the land ministry's falsification of a "fundamental" government statistic by double counting the figures when it submitted its report to the Diet in September.
The panel is expected to submit a draft report of its investigation to the ministry on May 13, according to a source.
The panel found that the statistics of fiscal 2020 were overestimated about 3.6 trillion yen, or about 5 percent of the entire records.
The panel also estimated that the statistics in and before fiscal 2019 were overestimated by about 5.8 trillion yen each year, or about 8 percent of the entire records.
The results suggest that the ministry needs to make corrections on huge amounts of money.
When an operator failed to submit a report of order records on time and instead submitted several months of records together in fiscal 2020, ministry staff rewrote the records of the most recent month and the previous month without permission.
The staffers combined them and processed it as if the combined record was a record of the latest month only.
The panel examined survey slips and other documents, which the operator filled out with order records and submitted to the ministry.
It then confirmed that the statistics were overcounted by about 3.6 trillion yen.
In and before fiscal 2019, the volume of order records combined was larger. Therefore, the amount of the overestimation will be greater.
The Asahi Shimbun in January estimated the impact of the data falsification on the fiscal 2020 statistics based on released data and guidance from multiple experts.
The Asahi Shimbun reported that the figures were likely overestimated by about 4 trillion yen, or about 5 percent.
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