Around 20 Liberal Democratic Party members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly were found to have omitted some revenues from fundraising parties in their political funds reports.
According to informed sources, the party's group in the assembly assigned sales quotas to members for fundraising party tickets, requiring them to sell 50 tickets for a total of ¥1 million ($6,500). Around 20 members likely retained ticket sales revenues in excess of the quota instead of giving them to the group.
The excess amounts were not recorded in the political funds reports of the members nor of the group. At least one lawmaker failed to report over ¥1 million.
A similar scandal involving slush funds created from unreported fundraising party revenues has plagued LDP parliament members.
According to funds reports of the LDP's metropolitan assembly group, fundraising parties were held twice, in December 2019 and May 2022, during the past five years, a period for which the statute of limitations still stands. Revenues from the two events were reported to be ¥62.46 million and ¥61.12 million, respectively.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.