Japan's finance minister faces donations scandal+

TOKYO, June 24 Kyodo - Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano was confronted Wednesday with allegations that his fund management body might have received illegal donations from a dummy political organization for more than a decade.

The latest scandal could further pull down the flagging approval ratings of
Prime Minister Taro Aso's administration ahead of a general election that must
be held by this fall.
A commodities futures trading company and its affiliates provided a total of 90
million yen in political donations to Yosano and former administrative reform
minister Yoshimi Watanabe between 1992 and 2005 via what is believed to be a
dummy political organization, company and other sources said.
Accepting such money could be in breach of Japan's political funds control law,
which bans companies from making donations to politicians. It also prohibits
political donations under the name of a third party.
At a hastily called news conference, Yosano said he has no plans to step down
from his post over the scandal, denying any wrongdoing in his long political
career.
Yosano, who is also economy and fiscal policy minister, said he may return the
money if he finds it legally problematic but has not thought about doing ''more
than this.''
He said the donations were recorded rightly in his body's official funding
reports every year and ''there are no falsifications.''
Aso said Yosano had demonstrated his accountability when reporters questioned
the prime minister about the scandal.
The Tokyo-based company, currently called H.S. Futures Co., and its affiliates
gave 55.3 million yen to Yosano and 35.4 million yen to Watanabe in total by
collecting money through monthly salary deductions from their senior employees,
according to the sources.
The political organization in question was headed by Yukio Kato, the proprietor
of the predecessor of H.S. Futures, and the deductions have been suspended
since he withdrew from the management around 2005, the sources said.
''I did not know at all how (the political body) was collecting funds and I did
not feel the necessity to know (about it) at the time,'' Yosano told a House of
Representatives committee, responding to questions from lawmakers of the
Democratic Party of Japan.
Earlier this year, a fundraising scandal involving a dummy political
organization led to former DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa's resignation from the top
post of the main opposition party.
Yosano called Kato a ''bona fide supporter since more than 30 years ago'' and
said the donations ended in October 2005 as Kato required medical treatment.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said at a regular press conference that
Yosano ''gave an appropriate explanation regarding the relationship with the
representative of the (political) body in question and on how the donations
ended.''
Yosano received some of the donations when he was international trade and
industry minister with responsibility for overseeing futures trading.
Yosano said he did not have any contact with the company when he was industry
minister between 1998 and 1999.
Throughout his long relationship with Kato, Yosano said he did not provide any
benefits to the company or the commodities trading industry using his political
power.
Watanabe, who left the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in January in protest at
the government's slow progress on streamlining the national public servant
system, told reporters that he will return the money if it was donated in an
illegal manner.