Once again, a lawmaker has had to resign from the Diet after admitting to having borrowed somebody's name to misappropriate the state-paid salary of a bogus secretary. This time, the scandal involves Mr. Kanju Sato of the Democratic Party of Japan, a former minister of home affairs and chairman of the National Public Safety Commission. Mr. Sato's resignation from the Diet is only natural, but it should not be the end of the matter. Suspicion of fraud remains.

Both the ruling and opposition parties have begun a review of the state-paid secretary system. Let us hope that the Diet takes effective measures that will prevent further recurrences and restore the people's trust, including a thorough investigation of the actual situation concerning state-paid secretaries.

The secretary in question this time, a woman, was registered as Mr. Sato's second state-paid secretary from June 2000 to April 2003. The total salary paid by the state during this period would have been more than 16 million yen. According to an official report, the woman donated 4.5 million yen to Mr. Sato's fund-management organization. The fact that an individual may donate a maximum of only 1.5 million yen a year means that donations in the woman's name were made right up to the limit for three years.