Abe implicated in gov't deal for new school to be built at friend's university

A document has surfaced that may implicate Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a government decision to approve the heavily-subsidized opening of a new department in a university run by one of his friends.

Okayama University of Science was chosen to open a veterinary medicine school in Ehime Prefecture, in one of Japan's national strategic special economic zones, which has far more relaxed regulations to boost growth in the area, as part of Abe's overall growth strategy.

The university itself is operated by Kake Educational Institution, which is headed by a friend of Abe, Democratic Party lawmaker Yuichiro Tamaki said at a lower house committee meeting on Wednesday.

Tamaki said an education ministry advisory panel is currently assessing an application to open the school and the ministry has prepared a document stating that the Cabinet Office said Abe backs the plan.

Tamaki said Wednesday that the document suggests that the education ministry was told by the Cabinet Office that the choice for the new department "was heard to have been the prime minister's wish."

Tamaki added that he is in possession of the document and asked Education Minister Hirokazu Matsuno whether he had knowledge of the document or the situation.

Matsuno said he will confirm the matter, but maintained that neither Abe nor his office had given him instructions regarding the new school to be opened.

Matsuno also said he had not received a report from the Cabinet Office suggesting the prime minister had approved the plan to open the school.

But Tamaki maintains the document shows that negotiations had taken place between the ministry and the Cabinet Office regarding the timeframe for opening the new department at the university.

The latest claim follows Abe, his wife and other ministers being embroiled in an as yet unresolved cut-price state land deal with another private school operator in Osaka.

Moritomo Gakuen, the operator of a nationalist school in Osaka, said it had received a donation and the backing of Abe to open a new school on a piece of land owned by the government and sold to the operator for just a fraction of its appraisal value.

As the Moritomo Gakuen scandal continues to rumble on, the government's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, on Wednesday distanced Abe and the education ministry from the new scandal brewing, saying that there was no truth to the matter.

"It is not known who wrote this. The government would not provide an answer to such a nonsensical thing," Suga said with reference to the document.

However, after Kake Educational Institution was selected for the project in a meeting held between the central and local governments in the special strategic zone in Ehime in January, the local city assembly opted to provide the land to the institution to build the new department for free.

In addition, they provided 9.6 billion yen (85.2 million U..S. dollars) as a subsidy for construction costs.

Imabari, the second-largest city in Ehime, had initially acquired the land for some 3.68 billion yen (32 million U.S. dollars), informed sources said.

The new veterinary medicine department is planned to be a part of the Okayama University of Science which itself is run by the Kake Educational Institution.

The chairman of the institution is a known acquaintance of the prime minister. Endit