Press Conference by the Chief Cabinet Secretary (Excerpt)

Q&As

• The misappropriation of the reconstruction budget

(Abridged)

REPORTER: I would like to ask a question concerning the reconstruction budget that was revealed to have had funds misappropriated. In relation to the funds that were used for projects that have little or no connection to the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Reconstruction Agency and the Ministry of Finance today demanded the respective municipalities and charitable organizations to return unused funds, which amount to approximately 101.7 billion yen, to the national Government. If you have any thoughts on this, could you please share them with us?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY SUGA: Funds originally allocated for reconstruction were misappropriated for use in areas other than the affected regions. Ever since the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito formed the Government we have conducted budgetary assessments of the FY 2012 supplementary budget and the FY 2013 initial budget to ensure that issues like this never occur again. The misappropriated funds are from the FY 2011 third supplementary budget and the FY 2012 initial budget, which were drafted by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). If I may add more, there is also the problem that when the DPJ Government reviewed the budget in November last year, the misappropriation of funds to areas outside of the affected areas, although discovered, was left unresolved. In light of this, it is extremely regrettable that the reconstruction budget was used in areas other than the affected region. The Abe Cabinet conducted an investigation together with the Reconstruction Agency and the Ministry of Finance and, as much as possible, has been trying to prevent the spending of reconstruction budget funds in areas other than those affected by the earthquake. Today's decision was resultant from these efforts.