Photo/Illutration A meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee on Feb. 13 (Takeshi Iwashita)

Eighty-two incumbent Diet members admitted to failing to correctly report their political fund balances in a survey conducted in response to the scandal involving slush fund money paid by factions. 

The amount of unreported and misreported money totaled 567.8 million yen ($3.8 million).

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party released the results on Feb. 13 of a survey taken of all of its Diet members to determine whether any omissions had been made in their political funds reporting.

The result revealed that 82 sitting Diet members incorrectly reported their political funds in the five-year period from 2018 to 2022.

The survey covered a total of 384 respondents--258 Lower House members and 116 Upper House members, and 10 people including branch managers for each electoral district and former Diet members. 

Of these, 78 responded there was at least an omission that had been made in their political fund balance reports.

Based on the party’s investigation and other information, it was confirmed that a total of 85 people--82 Diet members and three branch managers of electoral districts--had made inaccurate or incomplete entries in their income and expenditure reports.

Members of the faction of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe comprised the most with 76, totaling 476.63 million yen, followed by members of the faction of Toshihiro Nikai, a former LDP secretary-general, with six, totaling 91.18 million yen. 

Individually, Nikai led with 35.26 million yen, followed by Abe faction member Hiromi Mitsubayashi with 29.54 million yen. 

Koichi Hagiuda, a former LDP policy chief and a leading figure of the Abe faction, was third with 27.28 million yen. Eriko Yamatani, an Upper House member who belongs to the Abe faction, was fourth with 24.03 million yen. 

“It is extremely important to report accurately (on the income and expenditure reports)," Hiroshi Moriyama, chair of the LDP’s General Council, said at a news conference that day. "If it is not transparent and reported correctly, it will not earn the public’s trust.”

The party plans to release the results of interviews conducted in conjunction with the survey to the Diet members who are believed to have been involved in the creation of the slush funds.

The slush funds are believed to have been formed from money from the sales of tickets to fund-raising parties that exceeded the quotas assigned to lawmakers and returned to them. 

(This article was written by Yuta Ogi and Naoki Matsuyama.)

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