TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio on Monday vowed to revise the political funds control law during the current parliamentary session ending on June 23.

“We need to realize (the proposed law revision) during the current Diet session,” Kishida told a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Kishida, submitted last week a bill to revise the law, in the wake of a political funds scandal involving factions of the party.

The bill calls for the introduction of a guilt-by-association system to hold lawmakers more strictly, the disclosure of a rough breakdown of how so-called policy activity funds were spent if the amount exceeded 500,000 yen, and lowering the threshold for disclosing the names of those who purchase tickets for fundraising parties worth over 100,000 yen.

“We were able to present effective preventative measures in the form of clauses” under the LDP-sponsored bill, Kishida said.

Takayuki Ochiai of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan demanded that the threshold for ticket buyer disclosure be set at over 50,000 yen, the same as for political donations.

“Donations and fundraising parties are different,” Kishida said. “There is no need to set the same criteria.”

Kishida said that the 500,000-yen threshold for the policy activity funds, paid from political parties to member lawmakers, is considered sufficient, given the current situation involving such funds at the LDP.

Former Prime Minister NODA Yoshihiko of the CDP criticized the LDP bill for failing to include a ban on donations by companies and organizations while such a measure has been proposed by opposition parties.

“We should not ban donations by companies and organizations, but rather work on improving the transparency of such contributions,” Kishida said.

Kishida said that his party will not interview former Prime Minister MORI Yoshiro again over the political funds scandal.

JIJI Press