Kawasaki city officials apologized at a news conference on Wednesday after a senior employee was arrested on suspicion of violating the Act on Prevention of Collusion in Public Works Bidding, among other charges, over the leaking of a public works price.
Takao Sekiguchi, the suspect, is alleged to have met the person he leaked the price to inside city hall. Toru Hata, the facilities maintenance department director who holds the post Sekiguchi formerly occupied, described the limits of the city's oversight.
“We instruct staff to deal with contractors in groups of several people wherever possible, but we are not able to grasp all of their movements.”Toru Hata, Kawasaki facilities maintenance department director
It is not the first such case in the city. In 2015 a construction and green space bureau employee was arrested and convicted of leaking bidding information to a landscaping firm over a city-ordered park improvement project. The city tightened its handling of information after that, but the problem recurred.
Mayor Norihiko Fukuda said he took the arrest seriously. "I have instructed all employees to tighten discipline, and when the facts become clear we will deal with the matter strictly," he said in a statement.
A career official on sick leave
Sekiguchi joined the city in 1989. He served as director of the facilities maintenance department in the urban development bureau in fiscal 2023 and 2024. He is now a director attached to the same bureau and had been on sick leave since mid-July this year.
Painters in the city reacted with dismay and resignation. A company president in his 50s said the case would damage the industry's image. "I'm shocked and disappointed," he said.
Another president, in his 30s and a member of the Kawasaki Painting Industry Association, said the pattern was familiar. "Public works are riddled with cozy ties, and I can't get in. But I thought this case was the usual setup," he said.