Some details of the slush fund scam at the Nagasaki Prefectural Government surfaced Monday as Gov. Genjiro Kaneko revealed that city bureaucrats spent some of the hoarded money on new golf clubs and other purchases.
Kaneko said at a press conference that a city fact-finding team has determined the unnamed officials used the money to buy two golf clubs and 130 kg of rice for golfing prizes between 2001 and 2002, and 600,000 yen worth of instant noodles for the personnel section between 2001 and 2003. They also gave 2 million yen to a local fisheries cooperative for unknown reasons.
Local businesspeople told Kyodo News the secret money may have been used for other purposes, revealing they had sent fake invoices to local bureaucrats, pooled money received from the local government and, in return, bought them food and gift certificates.
The gift certificates, which can be exchanged for cash, totaled several hundred thousand, yen one of the businesspeople said.
Kaneko announced last Tuesday that various sections of the municipal government had amassed secret funds totaling at least 180 million yen as of 1999, but that it was not determined at the time whether bureaucrats were misusing the money.