The Foreign Ministry, in the wake of an embezzlement scandal involving a senior bureaucrat, will cut its discretionary diplomatic funds, step up its inspections and let the foreign minister have the final say on spending, it announced Wednesday.
The ministry, in a reform report approved Wednesday by the Liberal Democratic Party's panel on foreign affairs, said it will strive to effectively use the discretionary diplomatic funds for the current fiscal year, for which 5.57 billion yen is already allocated.
Starting the next fiscal year, the ministry will work to reduce the discretionary fund by moving nonclandestine expenses out of the fund to other budget items eligible for disclosure, it said.