Tokyo, 7 May, /AJMEDIA/
Japan’s ruling party is considering asking its lawmakers to report how they spend its allowances, sources familiar with the matter said Monday, in connection with a slush fund scandal involving senior members of the party that has become a headache for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Reforming the management of party money provided for individual lawmakers as well as revenues from fundraising parties will be among the key issues to be discussed between the ruling and opposition camps during the current parliamentary session scheduled to end June 23.
Lawmakers in Japan do not need to disclose how they use money received from their parties under the political funds control law. The lack of transparency is said to have given rise to rampant misuse of political funds.
Kishida, who serves as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, has told his fellow lawmakers to speed up work with the party’s coalition partner Komeito to revise the law and require politicians to report the usage of such funds, the sources said.
“We’ll do our utmost to revise the law by the end of the ongoing parliamentary session” to ensure a similar problem will never happen again, Kishida told a press conference during a visit to Brazil on Saturday.
Kishida’s cabinet continues to face low approval ratings, with support remaining below 30 percent following revelations late last year that some LDP factions had neglected to report portions of their income from fundraising parties, with hundreds of millions of yen reimbursed to party members.
In connection with the slush fund scandal, prosecutors indicted a former LDP lawmaker in January, while the party reprimanded a total of 39 people, including lawmakers, last month.
