A former vice speaker of the Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly said on Monday he prepared ¥5 million in cash after taking the post in 2018, the fifth former speaker or vice speaker to testify under his real name in a widening scandal over money in local politics.
Shigehiro Hatanaka, 74, a former assembly member who belonged at the time to the Democratic Prefectural Government Caucus, the second-largest group in the chamber, said he readied the cash on Nov. 26, 2018, after becoming vice speaker. He is the second member of that caucus to give a named account.
Hatanaka said his wife handed him a paper bag containing the cash as he got into an official car that had come to collect him at home. He took it to the vice speaker's office.
He said he cannot recall at what stage or to whom he passed the money. In July, Hatanaka spoke to the Mainichi Shimbun on condition of anonymity and said he had given the ¥5 million to Toshio Yoshimura, then chairman of the Democratic caucus. He has since revised that statement, saying he has no clear memory of it.
On the money that changes hands when members take the speaker or vice speaker posts, Hatanaka said: "Everyone knew it as a bad custom. Nobody had to say it — it was understood to be ¥5 million, and I prepared it."
He said he decided to speak on the record because his health had recovered and because a third-party committee and a Hundred Articles Committee — an assembly panel with subpoena powers — had been set up. He wanted, he said, to convey his remorse and apologies to the public.
Yoshimura denied any involvement. He told reporters he had never heard that ¥5 million was needed to become vice speaker as a matter of custom, and that he had neither attended any handover of cash nor proposed one.
Hatanaka first won a seat in a 2010 assembly by-election in the Miyako district. He served four terms until 2023 and was vice speaker from May 2018 to April 2019.
Named testimony has also come from members who never held the top posts. Masafumi Inoue, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party caucus, has said he paid about ¥800,000 in golf club fees while serving as chairman of the agriculture, forestry and fisheries committee.