The Foreign and Education ministries have ordered a government-affiliated body in charge of promoting student exchange programs with other Asian nations to shut down because of an alleged embezzlement incident. The two ministries terminated Wednesday the "establishment permission" issued in 1981 for the Tokyo-based Japan Solidarity Committee for Asian Alumni, they said in a statement. "JASCAA failed to comply with repeated orders to improve its operations and management and to clarify and submit its accounting books," a Foreign Ministry official said. In September, the ministry filed a criminal complaint against Takeo Sasagawa, who heads JASCAA, for allegedly embezzling 11.5 million yen. Sasagawa, 73, has denied the allegations but has admitted his committee had been lax in keeping accounts. The ministry said it has also discovered that JASCAA has not kept legally required accounting documents and that 695 million yen in private donations and membership fees is missing. JASCAA was established in 1981 to promote exchange programs with non-Japanese Asians who have studied in Japan. The committee was also commissioned by JASCAA International, a U.N.-sanctioned nongovernmental organization, to manage a scholarship program worth 90 million yen annually for Asian students wishing to study in Japan. But JASCAA International withdrew the program's management from the Japanese committee in 1991, suspecting wrongdoing.
