Japan's communications minister implicated in shady loan scandal

Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday denied reports published in a weekly magazine that one of her secretaries, who is also her brother, was involved in a shady loan scandal made to an agricultural corporation with links to her supporters.

Following a story released by the Shukan Post on Monday, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) minister told a news conference at the Diet that neither she nor her secretary were involved in the case.

"Neither I nor my secretary are involved in the case at all. It 's a vicious and maliciously fabricated article," Takaichi said, adding that her secretary may consider suing the magazine.

The allegations claim that the former president of an agricultural firm in Mie Prefecture, who had connections with Takaichi's supporters, received 220 million yen (1.84 million U.S. dollars) in loans from the Japan Finance Corporation, a public corporation wholly owned by the Japanese government.

The reports say that the agricultural firm, which received the illicit funds in 2011 and 2012, ran into financial trouble, and in 2013, had chalked up 100 million yen in off the books expenditures. Takaichi's brother allegedly introduced a sponsor from a "Tokyo- based company" to help bail out the cash-strapped farming firm, telling its former president he would take care of its cash flow problems.

Takaichi said she had no connections with the agricultural firm 's former founder, who, according to the magazine, is still effectively running the company, and slammed the accusations against her and her brother as an attempt to taint the image of the LDP ahead of the upcoming local elections.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government's top spokesperson, said on Monday that he expected Takaichi to fully explain the situation to the public.

The allegations levied at Takaichi came on the heels of a series of LDP-linked funding scandals, that have also seen Prime Minister Shinzo Abe implicated.

On March 3, Abe admitted receiving illicit funding from firms that his government provided subsidies to, with political fund reports also showing that his chapter, on three separate occasions, received 500,000 yen over a two-year span starting 2011, from Ube Industries Ltd. in Tokyo.

Ube Industries Ltd. was given a total of 93 million yen by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in subsidies, according to the ministry's funding reports.

Three of Abe's cabinet members have already quit over funding improprieties, which has cast a new shadow over Japan's inherent, decades old wheeler-dealer style of backroom politics, involving shady loans and illicit funding.

Economy Minister Akira Amari coming under fire recently for accepting a 120,000-yen donation from a company that received state subsidies, and farm minister Yoshimasa Hayashi admitting recently he had received donations from two firms that were subsidized, have only served to reinforce the "money politics" image in Japan.

As the scandals continue to unfold, with Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura also being accused of allegedly taking donations from unregistered organizations based outside of his Tokyo constituency, local newspapers and magazines said they are gearing up to expose a "register" of politicians, including more of Abe's ministers, who have breached Japan's political funds control law.

Takaichi, who served in Abe's previous administration and was selected for her current post in 2014, is no stranger to controversy and is openly affiliated, along with Abe and the majority of his cabinet, to the ultra-right wing, revisionist Nippon Kaigi organization. Endi