Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga once again denied Monday wining and dining with former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya and a disgraced former executive of defense equipment trader Yamada Corp.</PARAGRAPH>
<PARAGRAPH>Nukaga, appearing before an Upper House committee, also denied he received a donation from Yamada but admitted he sold party tickets worth a total of ¥2.2 million to Yamada between 2002 and 2007, all of which he said he returned when the scandal broke. </PARAGRAPH>
<PARAGRAPH>Nukaga explained that the parties were 'small with only about 100 people' and were morning working groups in which the participants considered policies together.</PARAGRAPH>
<PARAGRAPH>'I think a donation and party tickets are two completely different things,' Nukaga explained. Parties 'are organized by political –
groups and the profits are used for political activities, while a donation is a one-way profit."
Nukaga said he checked but found no records and has no recollection of being present at a dinner party with Moriya and Motonobu Miyazaki, the former Yamada executive now under arrest for alleged embezzlement.
"I spent day and night looking into (past records) . . . but have found that I did not attend" such parties, Nukaga claimed.
On Thursday, Moriya told a different Upper House committee that he thought two former defense ministers — Nukaga and Fumio Kyuma — wined and dined with Miyazaki on separate occasions.
