<figure id="attachment_359538" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359538" style="width: 4049px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="737d42bc"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/664ae8c982121da3fca221a419faff92.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359538" class="wp-caption-text">Mr. Ozawa was said to be the &#8220;most powerful man&#8221; in the Hosokawa administration at the time.</figcaption></figure>
<p> What did &#8220;FRIDAY&#8221; report 10, 20, and 30 years ago? In &#8220;Playback Friday,&#8221; we take a look back at the topics that made headlines back then. This time, we will look back at the article from the February 11, 1994 issue, which was published 30 years ago, &#8220;Question to a &#8216;general contractor politician&#8217;: &#8216;Won&#8217;t he be arrested? Won&#8217;t they be arrested? Are they going to be arrested?</p>
<p> In March 1993, former LDP Vice President Makoto Kanemaru was arrested and indicted for massive tax evasion. The arrest documents revealed that general contractors had been bribing powerful central politicians and top local government officials, leading to the revelation of &#8220;general contractor corruption. Since June of the same year, the mayor of Sendai, the governors of Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures, and executives of general contractors have been arrested one after another. At the time, rumors were rife in Nagata-cho that the investigation might finally extend to the world of central politics. (Their titles and ages are as of that time.)</p>
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<h3><span class="strongInContent"> Mr. Ozawa staring at the members with a &#8220;What the hell?</span></h3>
<p> The first was Ichiro Ozawa, 51, the secretary general of the Shinsei Party. Ozawa was reported to have received 10 million yen from Hazama (Hazama Corporation), which was expected to be the &#8220;voice of heaven&#8221; for the construction of the Hyuga Dam planned by Iwate Prefecture, and a 5 million yen donation from Kajima (Kajima Corporation), which is suspected of violating the Political Funds Control Law.</p>
<p> The article reports on a direct interview with Ozawa in an elevator at the Diet.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When asked, &#8220;Some reports are saying that Mr. Ozawa is going to be arrested. Ozawa looked at me and said, &#8220;What do you mean? Is there any such fact? He then said, &#8220;You fools, it&#8217;s for your (the media&#8217;s) money, that&#8217;s for sure.</span></p>
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<p> The second was Shizuroku Kajiyama, 67, who also served as secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party. He is alleged to have been offered a 10 million yen bribe by Mitsui Construction Co. to dictate to the former governor in connection with the Ogawa Dam in Ibaraki Prefecture. The surrounding area was quite tense, as the person himself could not be seen for several days due to reports of &#8220;a central breakthrough from Kajiyama and others.&#8221;</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Shizuroku Kajiyama and Kishiro Nakamura are hiding in the clouds."></div>
<p>The article at the time stated</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> On January 25, when we visited him at his residence, his secretary came out and told us, &#8220;We have nothing. We have nothing to offer, and we refuse to do this kind of aggressive interviewing. Mr. Kajiyama, on the other hand, did not seem particularly upset and got into his car. As he held up the camera, his secretary again stood in the way, asking, &#8220;Are you going to film this? In the end, Mr. Kajiyama left only one word: &#8220;No comment. At Kajiyama&#8217;s office, he asked, &#8216;Where have the delegates been all this time? We haven&#8217;t been contacted, and we don&#8217;t know. We are innocent.</span></p>
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<p> The third was Kishiro Nakamura, 44, former construction minister, who was alleged to have received a 10 million yen illegal donation from Kajima to suppress the Fair Trade Commission&#8217;s criminal prosecution of a bid-rigging organization, the Saitama Saturday Association. However, he has gone completely &#8220;under the radar,&#8221; with only one woman manning the phone at his office. The only woman at the office is the telephone operator, and she is puzzled, saying, &#8220;I can&#8217;t get in touch with the deputies. A visit to his local office in Sakaimachi, Ibaraki Prefecture, as well as to the assemblyman&#8217;s dormitory, proved fruitless.</p>
<p> The fourth, former Postal Minister Hideo Watanabe, 59, is also in hiding. According to his secretary, he was &#8220;making the rounds in his hometown (Niigata),&#8221; but there was no indication that the local press had made contact with him either.</p>
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<p> The fifth person is Kazuo Aichi, director general of the Defense Agency, whose connection to the previous Sendai mayor, who was arrested in July of the previous year, led to whispers that he was &#8220;in danger. This magazine also directly interviewed Mr. Aichi.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> January 30 seems to be in danger, doesn&#8217;t it?</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> January 30? Well, am I in danger, too? I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s nothing going on on January 30, because I haven&#8217;t done anything wrong. I&#8217;m not doing anything wrong on January 30.</span></p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" &quot;There&#39;s been a lot of talk about it, but it&#39;s total bullshit.&quot;"></div>
<p>The sixth person to respond directly to this type of questioning was former policy chief Hiroshi Mitsuzuka (66), who seemed to be fed up with this type of questioning. His hometown is Miyagi Prefecture, and he is said to have had close contact with the former Sendai mayor, who was also reportedly involved in the allegations.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> 《&#8221;I know a lot of things have been written about me, but they are complete nonsense. It is said that secretaries have been called in by the district attorney&#8217;s office, but none of them have been called in. You can see that I have nothing to be ashamed of by the fact that I am speaking so openly.</span></p>
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<p> The last one is Yuji Otsuka, 64, former Minister of Construction. He was also said to have received 3 million yen from Shimizu Corporation in connection with the redevelopment of the Nagatacho area. When we asked him directly at a New Year&#8217;s party of the Japan Department Stores Association, he said &#8230;&#8230;.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> 《&#8221;I, you know, I didn&#8217;t do anything. That&#8217;s why you can appear at various places like this at the New Year&#8217;s party, isn&#8217;t it? Vendors came to me asking for various things, but I turned them down with a snap. That is the attitude of politician Yuji Otsuka toward vendors.</span></p>
<p> Which politician did the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office (TDPO) first mention?</p>
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<p> At the time, there were various theories circulating in Nagata-cho and among reporters working for the district attorney&#8217;s office regarding the &#8220;X-day,&#8221; including &#8220;January 30,&#8221; &#8220;February 3,&#8221; and &#8220;February 14,&#8221; and as many as six or eight people were said to have been arrested. However, on March 11, former Construction Minister Kishiro Nakamura was arrested, and on April 25, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office declared the investigation closed with the indictment of a total of 32 people.</p>
<p> The background of the case included the fact that the majority of public works orders are placed by local governments, such as prefectures and municipalities, and the nature of the industry.&#8217; In 2005, the four major general contractors, Kajima, Obayashi, Taisei, and Shimizu, declared a &#8220;break with collusion. However, there have been several instances since then in which surcharges have been imposed on these four companies.</p>
<p> And, as the issue of back taxes for factions in the Liberal Democratic Party continues to be reported daily, &#8220;politics and money&#8221; will always remain inextricably linked.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" General Contractor Politicians"></div>
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<figure id="attachment_359539" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359539" style="width: 4707px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9c79965c"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/6bc212592ea2714988d0487e207dad58-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359539" class="wp-caption-text">Shizuroku Kajiyama was not seen for several days and made &#8220;no comment&#8221; at the end of the meeting.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_359541" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359541" style="width: 4401px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="138ba627"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/10679153688a7652fe1cc7d9f9040ddd-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359541" class="wp-caption-text"> Kishiro Nakamura was also &#8220;hiding in the clouds&#8221;.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_359542" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359542" style="width: 3453px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="7903de12"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/3955b0cbeeb7b17e165186d46f3b3cce-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359542" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. Hideo Watanabe was also &#8220;missing&#8221;.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_359544" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359544" style="width: 3683px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a1809776"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/c2f584782065b2b275beb3af5d1ead19-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359544" class="wp-caption-text"> Kazuo Aichi, who was reportedly involved with the mayor of Sendai, who was arrested.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_359545" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359545" style="width: 3683px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="cfb5b31b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/a6c1ce46e858a82bb8769311cc6b49d9.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359545" class="wp-caption-text"> Hiroshi Mitsuzuka was also said to have close ties to the mayor of Sendai.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_359546" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359546" style="width: 3567px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b2a4c30b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/626fc204c1e9e80f61cb36459a57e178.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-359546" class="wp-caption-text"> Yuji Otsuka, who said he was &#8220;working hard to prepare for the next election.</figcaption></figure>
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 Takashi Hotta, Mitsutoshi Watanabe

 In this issue of "Playback," we look back at what we were reporting 10, 20, and 30 years ago. In this issue, we interview politicians who were in the spotlight in 1994 when the "general contractor corruption" was rumored to have finally reached the central political world!

Playback ’94] When is “X-Day”? Who will be arrested? We interviewed seven general contractor politicians!

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