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.
Top Japanese farm bureaucrat dined with indicted ex-head of egg firm Sorry, but your browser needs Javascript to use this site. If you re not sure how to activate it, please refer to this site: https://www.enable-javascript.com/
Jiji Jan 19, 2021
The farm ministry’s top bureaucrat attended a dinner meeting with a former egg production company head who has been indicted on bribery charges, farm minister Kotaro Nogami revealed at a news conference Tuesday.
Including the top bureaucrat, Masaaki Edamoto, vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, a total of seven senior ministry officials had two dinner meetings with Yoshiki Akita, former head of the company, Akita Foods, based in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture.