A senior official with close ties to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was ousted from his position on Monday after the communications ministry acknowledged he was treated to expensive meals by a telecom giant.
Yasuhiko Taniwaki, who was dismissed as a vice minister for policy coordination at the ministry, very likely violated Japan's ethics code for government officials by accepting the meals, worth a total of about ¥107,000 ($987), on three occasions between September 2018 and July 2020.
The ministry identified Taniwaki's wrongdoing in an interim report on its investigation into a wine-and-dine scandal involving Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.