Eggs produced by Akita Foods Co. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
The farm ministry has disciplined six bureaucrats who were wined and dined by an egg industry official involved in a separate bribery scandal that has ensnared a former agriculture minister.
Masaaki Edamoto, the top career bureaucrat in the ministry, was among the six who received pay cuts or warnings.
On two separate occasions, the bureaucrats had dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo that cost more than 20,000 yen ($190) each. Yoshiki Akita, the former head of Akita Foods Co., an egg producer based in Hiroshima Prefecture, picked up the tabs each time.
Ryota Takeda, the communications minister, apologizes at a Feb. 24 news conference when disciplinary measures were announced against ministry officials wined and dined by a satellite broadcaster. (Ryo Kato)
The telecommunications ministry has released the results of its investigation into the wining and dining of bureaucrats by a satellite broadcaster, but it left many questions unanswered, such as why.
The government announced disciplinary measures on Feb. 24 against seven high-ranking bureaucrats in the form of pay cuts ranging from 10 to 20 percent over one to three months, and issued various warnings to four other officials.
Two were warned, according to telecommunications ministry regulations.
The cozy ties that have been exposed in connection with the administration of broadcasting in Japan and the low respect for social norms among those i･･･