Yasuhiko Taniwaki, a former high-ranking telecommunications ministry bureaucrat, attends the March 15 Upper House Budget Committee session. (Reina Kitamura)
A senior telecommunications ministry bureaucrat embroiled in wining and dining scandals has resigned, which opposition lawmakers are criticizing as an attempt to prevent him from being questioned in the Diet.
Yasuhiko Taniwaki, the former vice minister for policy coordination at the ministry, submitted his resignation on March 16, which was immediately accepted, officials said.
Taniwaki was shuffled out of the ministry’s No. 2 bureaucratic post on March 8, following revelations about his wining and dining from a second company.
Ryota Takeda, the communications minister, announced earlier on March 16 that Taniwaki had been suspended for three months in connection with being wined and dined by top executives of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.