Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers have expressed reassurances about secrecy while others appeared desperate when they sold tickets for fund-raising events of their factions, company officials said.

Some company officials told The Asahi Shimbun that they felt “uncomfortable” about buying the tickets, many of which were not even used to attend the parties.

But they said they have continued to buy tickets because the practice had become ingrained in the system, and they did not want to offend the politicians.

Tokyo prosecutors are investigating the Abe faction in the LDP over an apparent slush fund created through excess ticket sales for its fund-raising parties.

The scandal has rocked the ruling party and raised questions about the fund reports of other LDP factions.

An executive board member of a civil engineering-related company said that several years ago he was asked separately by the offices of five lawmakers of the same LDP faction to buy party tickets.

His company bought 10 tickets worth 200,000 yen ($1,373) from each lawmaker for a total of 50 tickets worth 1 million yen.

The Political Fund Control Law requires factions to report the names of organizations that spend more than 200,000 yen on tickets for one fund-raising event.

The executive said he was concerned the company’s name would appear in the faction’s political fund reports because it had paid more than 200,000 yen in total. The executive did not want the company to look like it was favoring a particular faction because it has relations with various lawmakers of other factions.

When he consulted the office of one of the ticket sellers, an official explained how the ticket “scheme” works.

The official said each lawmaker has a quota of tickets to sell. After the tickets are sold, each lawmaker “simply deposits the proceeds with the faction” without naming the ticket buyers.

“There is no need to worry that your company’s name will show up on the fund reports,” the official said.

When the executive contacted the office of another veteran lawmaker, the same explanation was given.

Although the executive’s company has bought more than 200,000 yen worth of party tickets from the faction over several years, its name has never appeared on political fund reports.

“This practice has been going on for a long time. I’ve heard other factions are also doing it,” the executive said.

Indeed. After a criminal complaint was filed against five LDP factions over suspected erroneous political fund reports, some of the groups admitted that single organizations had paid more than 200,000 yen for tickets, and their names were not listed.

But the factions said the omissions were simply “oversights” because different faction members had sold tickets to the same group.

An executive board member from a machine processing company said it purchased 10 tickets for a party held by an LDP faction this year.

About a month before the party, a Lower House member visited the company’s headquarters, located in a rural area, and dropped off the 10 tickets.

“We cannot refuse requests from lawmakers for fear of being put at a potential disadvantage,” the executive said.

However, travel expenses to attend the party in Tokyo would be substantial if 10 company officials went.

Although it bought 10 tickets, the company never intended to use them all.

“The nine unused tickets were effectively a donation,” said the executive, who was the only one from the company to show up at the fund-raiser.

The executive recalled that the party was held without fine food and drink, and lawmakers just handed over documents introducing members of the faction.

“We have no choice but to play along with (the faction), but we have doubts about whether this practice should continue,” the executive said.

In the Abe faction, proceeds that exceeded each member’s sales quota went into a slush fund that was later used to give kickbacks to the same members, investigative sources said.

The slush fund money and kickbacks were never listed in the political fund reports of the faction or its members, the sources said.

An official from a political group that has been buying party tickets from an LDP faction for more than 20 years said he was puzzled over why the group kept buying more tickets than it needed.

“After seeing the reports about ticket sales quotas, I thought it makes sense,” said the official, showing unused tickets for a faction party held in May.

Regarding suspicions that factions could be creating slush funds, the official said, “If lawmakers use the money for political activities, not as pocket money, then the conduct is acceptable.”

An official from another political group said the organization has received party invitations from multiple lawmakers of the same faction.

“Some lawmakers seem desperate to sell tickets, and I thought it must be tough for them,” the official said.

On the slush fund allegations, the official said, “I never bought tickets thinking that the money would be used for anything other than political activities.”

(This article was written by Takashi Ichida, Ariha Noma and Doni Tani.)