The Cabinet Secretariat failed to examine cost estimates and other details of prime ministers' overseas trips before it handed discretionary state funds to a former Foreign Ministry logistics chief arrested earlier this month on suspicion of fraud, police sources said Tuesday.
Investigators suspect the secretariat's failure to check logistics books encouraged Katsutoshi Matsuo, 55, to pocket the discretionary funds by padding expenses such as hotel bills, the sources said.
The books list details such as dates, delegates, seating on government jets, participants in key events and accommodation arrangements, they said.
As head of the ministry's defunct Overseas Visit Support Division, Matsuo arranged 46 tours between November 1993 and July 1999 for former Prime Ministers Morihiro Hosokawa, Tsutomu Hata, Tomiichi Murayama, Ryutaro Hashimoto and Keizo Obuchi.
Foreign Ministry sources said copies of the logistics books are distributed to each delegate before leaving Japan.
Police said it would not have been difficult for the Cabinet Secretariat to check whether Matsuo exaggerated the number of delegates or hotel guests if it had compared the books with his budget requests.
Under police questioning, Matsuo has admitted defrauding the government of secret funds. He was arrested March 10 on suspicion of fraud for allegedly swindling the government out of 42 million yen in Cabinet Secretariat discretionary funds between 1997 and 1999.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed him Jan. 25 after an internal investigation determined that he had stolen at least 54 million yen in public funds from October 1997 to March 1999.