Photo/Illutration Former internal affairs minister Minoru Terada at an Oct. 26 session of the Lower House’s Special Committee on Political Ethics and Election Law (Koichi Ueda)

Minoru Terada, the internal affairs minister, apologized for a support group’s “error” of listing a dead man as its treasurer in its political funds reports for 2019 and 2020.

Terada told the Lower House Special Committee on Political Ethics and Election Law on Oct. 26 that he will ask the group to correct the information.

His Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has jurisdiction over the Political Fund Control Law.

Terada, who represents a constituency in Hiroshima Prefecture, confirmed in the Diet session that a man who died in October 2019 was named treasurer of the “Minoru Terada Takehara” support group in the prefecture in the income and expenditure reports for 2019 and 2020.

The reports also featured the dead man’s seal affixed to the written oath declaring the authenticity of the reports’ contents.

Terada said he is trying to get more information on what exactly happened.

“I do not head the political organization in question and do not know the details of how it processes paperwork,” he said. “But it still is an organization that supports me, and I have to apologize for the error.”

The erroneous funds reports were first revealed in the online edition of the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine.

Yuichi Goto, a legislator with the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, raised the issue at the session.

Terada earlier this month acknowleged that two political organizations that he heads transferred more than 20 million yen ($137,000) in rent money to his wife over 10 years.

He insisted that he had properly declared the money transfer in political funds reports and had paid related taxes. But he has rejected demands from the opposition bloc that he present documents to back his assertions.

Related News