Audit reveals govt bodies misused 125 billion yen

Written by Writer on Saturday, November 8th, 2008

Audit reveals govt bodies misused 125 billion yen

The Board of Audit on Friday revealed that government offices and their affiliates misused 125.36 billion yen through dishonest or sloppy accounting practices in fiscal 2007.

The figure is four times that of fiscal 2006 of 31 billion yen, mainly due to the Justice Ministry neglecting to register as property its land and buildings, including official residences and prisons, producing an accounting error of 30 billion yen.

The board said 37.7 billion yen of the 125.36 billion yen was misappropriated, including through fraudulent activities by officials.

The board also said that government ministries and agencies and governmental institutions have yet to pay back 13.1 billion yen the board ordered them to return to the national coffers. The board has been examining whether public funds have been properly used since 1946.

According to the board, Japan Post Bank Co. has not returned about 5 billion yen and Japan Post Insurance Co. has not paid back about 2.1 billion yen. The board said the money was not returned mainly because people who embezzled money while working at post offices still have not paid back the stolen money.

Meanwhile, in connection with the recent revelation that a spot check by the board of 12 prefectural governments found that all had misused subsidies from the central government, another 118 million yen in total was found to have been misused by nine of the prefectural governments, with the money having been obtained by prefectural governments procuring items different from the items written on bills, the board said Friday.

According to the board, a total of 1.14 billion yen was misused by the 12 prefectural governments, of which 556 million yen was state subsidies.

Of the total, 495 million yen was misused by officials misusing travel expenses, which made up the largest portion of the misappropriated money.
(Nov. 8, 2008)