Scandal-tainted Cabinet minister Fukushiro Nukaga informed senior officials of his Liberal Democratic Party on Monday that he will step down to take responsibility for his involvement in a scandal that has already claimed two lawmakers.
LDP sources said Nukaga, the state minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy, late Monday night told top party officials and core members of the party faction to which he belongs that he will resign.
Nukaga allegedly received 15 million yen from the industrial accident insurance provider KSD in exchange for efforts to include a comment that favored the firm's business in the keynote address made by the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi at the Diet last January. Nukaga was a deputy chief Cabinet secretary at the time.