Behind NHK’s Lenient Disciplinary Actions Against Managers: “Admonishment and Dismissal for Illegally Claiming Taxi Fees
On June 24, NHK announced that Mr. A, a male manager in his 50s working at the International Broadcasting Station, had been given an admonitory dismissal.
During the two and a half years from June 2019 to January this year, including the time when he was at his previous station, Kumamoto Broadcasting Station, he had used cab tickets worth about 700,000 yen 323 times, and had also illegally received money for train fare and other expenses, according to the report.
This is an unbecoming behavior for an employee of a public broadcasting station, but an NHK staff member who knew Mr. A said, “I knew this would happen someday. What does this mean?
It was said that Mr. A never did his job. It was said that Mr. A never worked. Soon after, I couldn’t find him anywhere, and when I searched around the bureau, I found him always sleeping in the nap room. At night, he would say, “I’m going to make my rounds,” and go off somewhere with a cab ticket. There was no need for the desk clerk to go on night rounds himself, and it was clearly unnatural. When the punishment was announced, I thought, ‘Oh, I knew it. ……
According to NHK, when questioned about the situation, Mr. A explained that he sometimes took a cab home because he was tired. He said that he took a cab to go home in Tokyo and charged the company for the cab fare, but the cab fare from NHK in Shibuya to his home cost at most 2,000 yen.
The cab fare from NHK in Shibuya to his home was only 2,000 yen at the most.
There were times when he slept in the nap room almost from the time he arrived at the office, and some bureaucrats would make fun of him, saying, “Aren’t you tired of sleeping?
