Photo/Illutration Masao Obata, a former transport ministry administrative vice minister (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Two more names emerged in a scandal involving retired transport ministry bureaucrats seeking to land cushy jobs in a private company they once did business with.

The case concerns lobbying for the post of president and other key executive positions at Tokyo-based Airport Facilities Co.

On April 4, the transport ministry released the results of questioning of Masaru Honda, 69, related to a December 2022 meeting with the chairman and president of Airport Facilities in which he suggested that naming another former transport ministry official as president the following June would result in greater government support for the company.

Honda is currently chairman of Tokyo Metro Co., but from July 2014 he served for a year as administrative vice minister of the transport ministry, the top post for career bureaucrats.

In the December meeting with Airport Facilities executives, Honda said that he was working on behalf of other administrative vice ministers who were senior to him.

In response to questioning at the transport ministry, Honda said the officials were Masato Obata, 78, who served as administrative vice minister for a year from July 2001, and Masafumi Yasutomi, 75, who served for a year in the same post from July 2006.

Contacted April 4 by The Asahi Shimbun, Obata said he asked Honda to set things in motion two years ago after the president of Airport Facilities abruptly resigned. However, he said he knew nothing about Honda’s meeting in December with the two Airport Facilities executives.

Yasutomi said he heard from Honda about his interactions with Airport Facilities, but insisted he never instructed his colleague about what should be done.

Yasutomi served as Tokyo Metro chairmen just before Honda took over the post and now serves as a company adviser. His office is next door to Honda’s.

Transport ministry officials on April 4 also released the results of their questioning of Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, a former high-ranking ministry official who Honda was lobbying hard to be named as company president.

It later emerged that Yamaguchi, 63, began aggressively putting his name forward to be named as executive vice president from as early as May 2021. Yamaguchi resigned on April 3 after The Asahi Shimbun reported on his activities.

Yamaguchi admitted to ministry officials that comments attributed to him by The Asahi Shimbun were absolutely accurate and apologized for bringing the ministry into disrepute.

Tetsuo Saito, the transport minister, held a news conference on April 4 in which he stressed that current ministry officials were not involved in the move to influence personnel decisions at Airport Facilities.

“This is an egregious case because it could cause the mistaken perception that the ministry was somehow involved,” Saito said.

He said that current ministry officials were completely blameless of any wrongdoing and suggested that the lobbying efforts did not amount to a concerted effort among the retired officials.

The latter part of that remark triggered howls of criticism from opposition lawmakers who asserted that retired ministry officials treated Airport Facilities as if it was their personal possession.

(This article was written by Shuhei Shibata, Sotaro Hata and Shinya Matsumoto.)

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