The Foreign Ministry has set up an in-house team to investigate an alleged pocketing of public funds by a senior ministry official and will disclose the findings "as soon as possible," Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said Friday.
"The report of wrongdoing by a senior staff member is extremely regrettable at a time when we are starting afresh in the new century," Kono said at a regular news conference after this year's first Cabinet meeting.
The senior official is suspected of having diverted several hundred million yen between 1993 and 1999 from state funds that are set aside to support overseas visits by Japanese VIPs. The official, whose identity has not been disclosed, served as the head of the ministerial office managing such funds until 1999.