Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday announced the dismissal and effective removal of Reconstruction Minister Kenya Akiba, who has been implicated in a funding scandal, becoming the fourth cabinet member to leave his post in the past two months.
Opposition parties and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party itself have made several calls for his resignation, especially in the run-up to the next ordinary parliamentary session at the end of January, according to Japan’s Kyodo news agency.
The Prime Minister has appointed as Akiba’s successor the former Prime Minister for Reconstruction between 2018 and 2019, Hiromichi Watanabe.
According to the media ‘The Japan Times’, Akiba has admitted that two political groups affiliated with him paid 14 million yen (98,562 euros) to his mother and his wife under the concept of «rent» between 2011 and 2020. In addition, the minister also allegedly paid 200,000 yen (1,412 in euros) to his secretaries, funded by the state, to work on his bid for re-election to the Lower House in October 2021, something that would violate the election law.
As the agency cited above states, Akiba’s immediate dismissal is due to the government’s desire to avoid obstacles to discussions on next year’s fiscal budget and other party bills in the next parliamentary session.
Previously, three other ministers have left their posts in the last two months. The first, the head of Economy, Daishiro Yamagiwa, for alleged relations with the controversial Unification Church; then the head of Justice, Yasuhiro Hanashi, after an uproar over frivolous comments about his functions; and the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Minoru Terada, also involved in a funding scandal.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
