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08/31/2007
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
OSAKA--A former senior official of the welfare ministry admitted Thursday he was given a luxury car from the head of an entity that receives hundreds of millions of yen in annual government subsidies.
Masaru Matsushima, 59, former director-general of the ministry's Kyushu Regional Bureau of Health and Welfare, was a ministry division chief in charge of approving social welfare organizations in 2005, when he received the free car.
He retired on Aug. 24.
The National Public Service Ethics Law of 1999 bans bureaucrats from receiving money and other gifts from those whose interests are affected by the officials' duties.
Yoichi Masuzoe, minister of health, labor and welfare, said Thursday he will consider punishment even though Matsushima had already left the ministry.
"It's a shame. After looking carefully into the case, we will take punitive measures on the basis of law," Masuzoe told reporters.
Matsushima said he was given a used Celsior sedan in November 2005 from a "relative," who was then head of Hirakata Ryoikuen, a social welfare corporation based in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture.
The relative, now 80, retired from the post in April 2006.
According to Matsushima, the former Ryoikuen chief suggested Matsushima take the Celsior, held in the name of his common-law wife, because she had bought a new car.
Matsushima said the same relative had earlier given him two used cars and several million yen in cash when he built or renovated his home.
Matsushima said his wife was a cousin of the former chief's now-deceased wife.
"I was given the car as we associated with one another as relatives," Matsushima said.
"I may indeed have been careless, but I have never provided any favor" to the man or his entity, he said.
Hirakata Ryoikuen operates 10 facilities, including nursing homes for the elderly and ones for children with serious disabilities, in Osaka, Hyogo and Saitama prefectures.
Between fiscal 2002 and 2004, the entity was granted a total of 1.324 billion yen in central government subsidies.
When Matsushima received the Celsior, he was chief of the Policy Planning Division of the ministry's Department of Health and Welfare for Persons with Disabilities.
In that position, Matsushima had the authority to approve and supervise social welfare entities such as Hirakata Ryoikuen.
The ethics law, enacted after a bribery scandal that led to the conviction of a former administrative welfare vice minister, bans central government officials from accepting gifts from interested parties. The ban applies even if those involved are relatives unless it is clear such gifts will not invite doubt from the public.
The law, however, covers only incumbent bureaucrats.
But Masuzoe said he will study ways to punish the retired Matsushima.
Matsushima was the ministry's first non-career bureaucrat to be promoted to a regional bureau chief post. He entered the ministry first on loan from an affiliated organization in 1976.
Hayao Yamamoto, a Hirakata Ryoikuen official, declined to comment on a "private affair" of its former chief.
But the entity never provided any gift to Matsushima with its own funds and never received any favors, Yamamoto said Thursday.(IHT/Asahi: August 31,2007)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200708300405.html
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