Endo's office got cash from farm subsidy recipient

YAMAGATA (Kyodo) An election office headed by Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Takehiko Endo accepted a ¥50,000 political donation in September 2005 from a livestock dealer group in Yamagata Prefecture that received state subsidies from a ministry affiliate, political sources said Friday.

The office, admitting receipt of the donation was not appropriate, has returned the money to the livestock dealer union and also submitted a revised political funds report with the local election management commission, the sources said.

The Political Funds Control Law bans corporations that are recipients of state subsidies from providing political funds within 12 months of a decision on the provision of the subsidies.

However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which oversees political fund flows, says a provision of political funds by a state-subsidy recipient does not necessarily run counter to the law if the provision is decided by a state-run corporation or a prefectural government.

Endo's office for Yamagata Prefecture's No. 2 constituency of the House of Representatives received the ¥50,000 donation on Sept. 6, 2005, five days before the Sept. 11, 2005, general election.

From September to December a year earlier, the state-run Agricultural & Livestock Industries Corp., the farm ministry affiliate, decided to grant ¥17.54 million in state subsidies to the Yamagata livestock dealer union through its umbrella organization, the Japan Livestock Dealers' Association, according to the farm ministry.

Endo's office apologized for the receipt of the donation, saying it did not know the livestock dealer union was a recipient of state subsidies.

"I apologize for causing trouble," Endo told a regular news conference after Friday's Cabinet meeting.

Endo joined Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Cabinet on Aug. 27.

Earlier in August, then Justice Minister Jinen Nagase admitted that his local office received a ¥500,000 donation in 2006 from an organization promoting the use of cheap foreign labor in Japan, a practice that has been criticized by a U.S. government report on human-trafficking practices.