A number of bureaus and departments within the Foreign Ministry have been improperly pooling funds by having several Tokyo hotels overcharge the ministry account, according to ministry sources.
The office of the deputy chief of protocol, which arranges visits by foreign VIPs, had pooled the largest amount, followed by the Economic Affairs Bureau and the European Affairs Bureau, the sources said. Each amounted to several tens of million yen.
The ministry is conducting an investigation and has asked each division to submit accounting books and other pertinent documents to compare them with the records kept by the hotels, according to the sources.