A vice labor minister quit Wednesday amid allegations that he planned to solicit bribes from a temp agency in return for his help with speeding up visa procedures for foreign nationals the agency intended to dispatch to Japanese firms, labor minister Takumi Nemoto said.

The resignation of Hiroshi Ueno, a parliamentary vice minister at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, is another blow to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which has already lost multiple senior officials to scandals in recent months.

The Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine reported last week that Ueno had been seeking ¥2 million in exchange for pressuring Justice Ministry officials to quickly process documents needed to issue visas for 100 foreign nationals that the temp agency Neo Career Co. planned to dispatch.