A Foreign Ministry investigation of influence-peddling by Liberal Democratic Party legislator Muneo Suzuki has revealed an appalling pattern of politico-bureaucratic collusion. A report released Monday indicates that Mr. Suzuki, a self-styled foreign policy guru, behaved like a "shadow foreign minister" and that a coterie of his friends in the ministry followed his dictates behind the scenes.
Here is an elected official climbing the ladder of power by arranging pork-barrel projects for companies in his constituency. Here are civil servants bending the rules of administration with political influence as the lever. The public interest is all but ignored. That is nothing new, as evidenced by past corruption scandals involving politicians and bureaucrats. The surprise is that this has happened in the Foreign Ministry.
According to the report, Mr. Suzuki, as deputy chief Cabinet secretary in 1999, intervened in a construction project for a public lodging facility on Kunashiri Island, one of the Russian-held islands known as the Northern Territories. He requested that the ministry invite tenders only from companies in Hokkaido's Nemuro district, his constituency. The ministry then decided to limit eligible bidders to "those who have building experience in Nemuro." The decision was made in consultation with the Assistance Committee, the implementing body for aid projects in the Northern Territories.