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TOKYO : Japan's embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday defended his new environment minister, who admitted he had been sloppy over money in another headache over his cabinet.
Abe had hoped that the scandals that rocked his previous cabinet and led to an election rebuke were over after last week's reshuffle, but he has already suffered a series of resignations.
In the latest woes for the cabinet, Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita admitted being "sloppy" after eight million yen (69,000 dollars) was unaccounted for in filings by the organisation managing his political funding.
But Abe defended Kamoshita, saying it was only an "error in recording" figures in the reports.
Abe said when he launched his new cabinet that ministers who failed to explain their political funding should resign.
Asked if Kamoshita should quit, Abe said, "This would not be the case if it is a recording error."
Kamoshita, a doctor, was first elected to parliament in 1993.
The Yomiuri Shimbun said his fund management organisation in its annual filings to authorities had said for eight years to 2005 that it had borrowed 10 million yen from Kamoshita personally in 1996.
But the original 1996 report had only two million yen listed as a loan, raising a question over the remainde.
Kamoshita said Wednesday that his personal lending to the organisation had been actually two million yen and the figure had been wrongly entered each year as 10 million yen.
"It is true that I was a bit sloppy with donations and lending," he told reporters.
Abe refused to resign after last month's election, saying voters still supported his conservative agenda, and saw a rebound in public support after his reshuffle.
But the farm minister and a vice foreign minister both resigned on Monday over financial irregularities.
One day later, Abe was hit by another blow as a lawmaker from his Liberal Democratic Party who narrowly survived the July election resigned over election fraud by his staff.
- AFP
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