Government officials acknowledged that infrastructure ministry bureaucrats violated a law through their practice of inflating construction contract data but said law enforcement authorities should decide if anyone should be punished.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Jan. 31 declined to commit to a recalculation of gross domestic product despite suspicions that the key economic statistic was inflated through data falsified by the infrastructure ministry.
The nation’s main opposition party proposed legislation Jan. 18 to ensure that children of recently divorced or separated parents receive a 100,000-yen ($873) government handout paid to households last year but which did not filter down to all intended recipients.