Tokyo Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe is on the defensive due to his spendthrift ways. Last month, the Japanese Communist Party revealed that he had spent more than ¥213 million on overseas trips since he took office two years ago, an amount that vastly exceeded not only the limits imposed by Tokyo regulations, but also any other politician's precedent, including former governor Shintaro Ishihara, who was known for his own extravagances.

Factoring in a trip to the U.S. he made following the revelations, since becoming governor Masuzoe has gone on nine journeys abroad, during which he has racked up 29 nights in expensive hotels, 28 of which exceeded regulated limits. Twenty-four, in fact, cost at least twice as much as the limit, and that included one night that was canceled but nevertheless charged to the metropolitan government.

The most expensive hotel room Masuzoe booked was a suite in the Conrad London St. James Hotel last October, which cost the equivalent of ¥198,000 a night, or five times the limit imposed by Tokyo's rules. And during his recent trip to the U.S., he stayed at the Wheeler Intercontinental Hotel in Washington at a cost of ¥151,800 a night.

According to the Asahi Shimbun, expenses for business trips by local government officials are set by the local governments themselves in accordance with the National Public Employees Law, and allowances increase with the prestige of the position. The Tokyo governor, not surprisingly, gets a higher allowance than most, equal to that of the prime minister. And while this amount is ¥40,200 a night for accommodations, there is a condition that says it can be increased "depending on circumstances" and with the "approval" of local government officials. For the record, the governor of Aichi Prefecture enjoys the second-highest limit for accommodations, equal to that of a Cabinet minister, and the Osaka governor's is the third highest, equal to that of a vice-minister.

To put Masuzoe's profligacy in perspective, Asahi asked six prefectures about their current governors' respective overseas business trips. Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa, which surround Tokyo, reported that their governors spent a total of 130 nights in foreign countries on business and not one exceeded the allowed limit. Aichi said its governor exceeded his limit on 15 of the 61 nights he spent abroad, some by more than double. Fukuoka's governor exceeded limits on 12 of 62 nights, and Osaka's on three of 21 nights.

The governor of Kanagawa, Yuji Kuroiwa, told the Asahi that he was in London at about the same time as Masuzoe to attend the Rugby World Cup and stayed in a hotel about 7 kilometers from central London, where he paid ¥32,000 a night, which is the maximum he's allowed and one-sixth what Masuzoe spent. He added that he has to pay anything above the limit out of his own pocket. "Even if the business trip has good results," he said, "it doesn't mean you can spend as much as you like."

Part of the problem may be administrative. When they make arrangements for business trips, Kanagawa, as well as Chiba and Saitama, tell the travel agent the price limit and the agent makes plans accordingly. Tokyo, however, tells its travel agents what it requires in terms of security, conference rooms, etc., and doesn't stipulate cost ceilings, though it is supposed to.

Osaka has a rule that says no room charge can ever exceed three times the stated limit in accordance with a 2001 Fukui District Court ruling that found — taking into consideration the "honorable status" of the Osaka governor — expenses should never exceed three times the limit. As one Osaka civil servant told the Asahi, Tokyo is the only local government that does not receive subsidies from the central government, and so its officials think they can spend as much as they want since no one in the central government is going to complain. Everybody else tries to stay within their limits.

National Ombudsman Satoshi Shinkai told the Asahi that "even within Tokyo" you can find a great hotel room for under ¥40,000, so London, which on average is about as expensive as Tokyo, should not be a problem, and he insists that any public servant who spends above the limit imposed should be required to explain why he needed such pricey digs.

According to the weekly Shukan Bunshun, Masuzoe also flies first class whenever he goes overseas, which is not necessarily unusual, but his staff flies business class, which is. They spent ¥2.25 million on airfares for last month's flight to Washington. Obviously stung by the JCP's allegations of overspending, his staff downgraded their accommodations in the U.S. capital but retained Masuzoe's suite, saying that he needed such a room in case he suddenly needed to confer with some VIP during his visit. However, as Yoshihiro Katayama, the former governor of Tottori Prefecture, told the magazine, those kinds of spontaneous powwows almost never happen on foreign business trips, since itineraries are planned down to the minute.

The private sector is more rigorous about business trip expenses. According to a survey by the Sanro Research Institute, of 174 Japanese companies, the average corporate limit for overseas trips for an executive is only about ¥16,000 a night, and about ¥14,000 for "regular employees," though it's even less for both if the destination is an Asian country. Moreover, only 4.6 percent of the companies surveyed allow their executives to fly business class.

So far Masuzoe has been less than forthcoming. Asked about expenses during a regular press conference, he answered that he would "accept the criticism humbly," but declined to get into specifics until his staff had looked into the matter. The fact that it's his staff that are doing the checking points up the real problem, which is a lack of third-party auditing of such matters. But already the press is going further, indicating that the problem has more to do with Masuzoe's personal preferences than any administrative needs of him or his staff.

Bunshun has gone deeper and found that Masuzoe uses an official car to drive him to and from his villa in Yugawara on the Izu Peninsula on weekends. In order to claim such an expense, Masuzoe should have to prove that he's using the villa for official duties, but there doesn't seem to be any documentation that proves he was doing so, only his word on the matter. In any case, it's quite an expense: A round-trip fare by hired car from Tokyo to Yugawara is ¥80,000, and that doesn't even include the wage for the driver, who's a civil servant and earns at the very least ¥142,000 a month, plus overtime — which certainly comes into play when you're driving 100 km out of your way. In the two years Masuzoe has been governor, he's taken the official car to Izu 48 times, meaning once every two weeks.

According to Katayama, this indulgence is about more than just cost. He himself never took a vacation out of town when he was governor of Tottori because he needed to be in close proximity to his office in case there was an emergency. If Masuzoe is in Izu when Tokyo is hit by the kind of earthquake visited on Kumamoto last month, he'd be cut off from the metropolis. "He should remember he's responsible for 13 million citizens," Katayama says.

Yen for Living covers issues related to making, spending and saving money in Japan on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. For related online content, see blog.japantimes.co.jp/yen-for-living.