Kanagawa prefectural police on the 5th referred a 78-year-old man to the Yokohama District Prosecutors' Office on suspicion of violating the Act on Prevention of Collusive Bidding and of obstructing public contract auctions, alleging he obtained unpublished price information from a Kawasaki city official, the Asahi Shimbun reported. The man is the secretary-general of the Kawasaki Painting Contractors Association, an industry body, and lives in Kawasaki's Asao ward.
The referral, confirmed through reporting with the prefectural police, follows the arrest on the 4th of Takao Sekiguchi, 59, a department head in the city's urban development bureau, on the same suspicion. Police allege the two conspired in two publicly tendered painting and waterproofing contracts for city facilities in 2024.
According to the police's investigative division 2, the secretary-general handled external relations for the association. Police say he obtained unpublished construction prices from Sekiguchi in person inside the city hall's main building, calculated minimum contract prices from them, and emailed the figures to the representative director of a member company.
The representative director passed the prices on to two other companies, which bid at amounts that exactly matched the minimum prices and won the painting and waterproofing work respectively after an electronic lottery, police said.
Former city post at issue
The secretary-general is a former Kawasaki city employee who retired at the director-general level in 2009. Police say he had work-related dealings with Sekiguchi while still employed by the city, and are investigating whether he used his standing as a former senior official to press for the disclosure of price information.
Police are also questioning the two winning companies voluntarily and are looking into whether similar irregularities occurred in earlier city contracts.
Mayor apologizes
Mayor Norihiko Fukuda apologized on the 5th over Sekiguchi's arrest, telling reporters at a regular news conference that the city had "invited a serious situation in which a serving senior official was arrested, and I feel an enormous responsibility." He added: "I want to apologize to the residents of the city."
The case has brought the arrest of a city department head and a search of city offices. "We take this extremely seriously and I want to offer a deep apology," Fukuda said.
Fukuda said he had regarded Sekiguchi as "a very serious person" and that "I don't think I am the only one who was shocked." He said the facts would be left to the prefectural police investigation for now, and that on preventive measures he would "take appropriate action once the truth has been clarified." The city issued a notice to staff the same day demanding strict legal compliance and discipline.