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TOKYO : Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new cabinet took another blow Saturday as a minister in charge of political funding admitted that he had in the past mishandled a political donation.
Hiroya Masuda, who was appointed the minister of internal affairs and communications in an August 27 cabinet reshuffle, said that his political office when he was a prefectural governor had made the mistake.
The office, tasked to manage his political funds, received one million yen (8,700 dollars) as a donation when he was campaigning to be re-elected as the governor of rural Iwate in 2003.
But the office did not register the donation in the correct official report on political funding, although it issued a receipt for the money to the donor, another Masuda support group.
"It was an awful mistake. I feel deeply ashamed of my insufficient control over the matter," Masuda told a news conference.
"As the minister in charge of political funds, I take this matter very seriously. I wish to make earnest explanations and solicit understanding from the people as I continue carrying out my duties," he said.
Masuda, 55, who served as Iwate governor for 12 years until he retired last April, said that he had accounted for the donation in a different official report.
A number of Japanese ministers have apologised or resigned for financial irregularities just weeks after Abe reshuffled his cabinet in an effort to bolster his sagging support and wipe the slate clean of earlier scandals.
The reshuffle came after a shock defeat for Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in upper house parliamentary elections late July.
Abe's farm minister and a vice foreign minister both resigned on Monday over financial irregularities. One day later, an LDP lawmaker resigned over election fraud by his staff.
On Wednesday, the new environment minister and the state minister in charge of gender equality separately apologised for filing incorrect political funding reports.
- AFP/ir
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