Governor Ishihara should be held responsible for failure of ShinGinko Tokyo: JCP

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Governor Ishihara should be held responsible for failure of ShinGinko Tokyo: JCP

The Japanese Communist Party in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on March 11 demanded that Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro withdraw his proposal to use 40 billion yen to rebuild the failing bank established under his initiative.

At the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Budget Committee meeting, Yoshida Nobuo, JCP assembly members’ group secretary general, said that Ishihara should accept responsibility, and apologize to citizens, for the bank’s failure, a bank that used as start up capital 100 billion yen in tax money. He also demanded that the governor disclose all the details that show how the management has run the bank and why the bank has failed.

The establishment of ShinGinko Tokyo in 2004 was supported by the Liberal Democratic, Democratic, and Komei parties. Opposition was raised only by the JCP.

Yoshida pointed out that the bank has been left 100 billion yen in debt not only by the bank’s overlending policy, but by its slack assessments of borrowers. He said that the master plan, which was based on an optimistic outlook that the bank would obtain surplus in three years, was a problem in spite of the fact that the draft plan said that the bank would still be in red three years after its opening. He said former Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials close to Ishihara changed the outlook.

Ishihara admitted that the idea of founding the bank originated from him, but said, “I did not make the plan.”

The JCP representative stressed that Ishihara must be held responsible for appointing Nishi Yasumasa and others as top executives of the bank and that the governor appointed a person who filed for personal bankruptcy as an executive and as one of Ishihara’s brains who donated one million yen to Ishihara’s political organization as an outside director of the bank.

“Given the fact that the then Tokyo Metropolitan Government director has testified that ‘candidates for executives were approved by the governor,’ it is not fair of you to try to evade responsibility in appointing them,” Yoshida stated.

“You’ve wasted 100 billion yen in tax money by ignoring the JCP’s warning. This shows how short-sighted you were,” Yoshida said.

- Akahata, March 12, 2008