Apr 10 (NHK) - Japan's Finance Ministry has admitted that one of its officials asked a school operator to lie about why it received a huge discount when it bought state-owned land.
The ministry sold the plot in Osaka, western Japan, to Moritomo Gakuen for a price far below its market value. It said the discount was aimed at offsetting the cost of removing buried waste.
Mitsuru Ota, who heads the ministry's bureau in charge of state-owned property, told an Upper House committee on Monday that an official in his section called Moritomo's lawyer in February last year.
Ota said the official suggested that Moritomo should say that thousands of trucks were used to transport the waste and the work cost a lot of money.
He said the official also asked a member of the ministry's Osaka office to pressure the school operator to comply. But he said the member refused to do this, and Moritomo's lawyer also rejected the proposal.
Ota said the bureau official tried to persuade Moritomo to make statements that would confirm the ministry's account of the waste removal. He said this was wrong and shameful, and he offered an apology.
Source: ANNnewsCH
