Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida responds to a question from Katsuya Okada, secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, during a Lower House Budget Committee session on Feb. 5. (Koichi Ueda)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised to revise a law to make the flow of political funds more transparent during the current ordinary Diet session to address problems that surfaced within his ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

“We will work to revise the Political Fund Control Law and other laws during the Diet session (which ends in June),” Kishida told a Lower House Budget Committee session on Feb. 5.

He was responding to a question from Katsuya Okada, secretary-general of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Kishida emphasized that the LDP clearly stated in its interim report for political reforms approved on Jan. 25 that it would consult with other parties on institutional reforms that would require legal revisions.

Earlier on Feb. 5, the LDP presented opposition parties with a list of members of the party’s Abe and Nikai factions who have recently corrected their organizations’ political fund reports.

The list covers the three years from 2020 and also includes the corrected amounts.

The LDP presented the list in response to a demand from four opposition parties.

But the CDP, Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), the Japanese Communist Party and the Democratic Party for the People had called for a list of all LDP lawmakers showing whether they received unreported political funds and covering the past five years.

Okada criticized the LDP list for covering only three years, saying that the amounts for the five-year period would be significantly larger because an Upper House election was held in 2019.

He also said the list was extremely insufficient because it does not show what the money was used for.

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