Reference News Network, August 1 report. According to the "Nikkei Shimbun" on July 31, the Ministry of Defense released an investigation report on the falsified transaction incident involving Kawasaki Heavy Industries on July 30. Kawasaki Heavy Industries is responsible for maintaining submarines for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and a total of 13 members were found to have improperly accepted personal items. Including the head of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, Chief of the Joint Staff, Saito Satoshi, 93 members of the Maritime Self-Defense Force were disciplined. The report also revealed that the Maritime Self-Defense Force had colluded with multiple companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries obtained submarine maintenance orders from the Maritime Self-Defense Force, and through fictitious transactions with subcontracting companies, it illegally established a slush fund. From fiscal year 2018 to 2023, this amount totaled 1.7 billion yen (approximately 11.37 million U.S. dollars), part of which was used to pay for shopping and dining expenses of ship crews.

The Ministry of Defense published a "Special Defense Inspection" report conducted independently by a former prosecutor. The report pointed out that the root cause of the problem was that "the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's fleet units have long been unable to obtain quality tools and consumables through regular procurement and supply processes in a timely manner."

The report shows that if the ship crews needed tools and onboard supplies but the Maritime Self-Defense Force could not procure them, then companies such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan Marine United Corporation (JMU), and Sasebo Shipbuilding provided them. In fact, some orders did not exist at all, and the inflated funds were siphoned off into slush funds.

This collusion between insiders and outsiders has developed into providing personal items unrelated to the Maritime Self-Defense Force's business to ship crews. Some crew members even actively requested Kawasaki Heavy Industries' engineering supervisors to purchase personal items such as game consoles and wireless headphones for themselves. The report states that these expenses totaled 1.4 million yen, involving 13 crew members.

Some employees of Kawasaki Heavy Industries also used these fictitious transactions to acquire personal items. The investigation report mentions: "Some company employees may have likely tried to shift responsibility by falsely claiming that the ship crews needed to purchase certain items."

The Ministry of Defense cannot disclose how much of the 1.7 billion yen slush fund held by Kawasaki Heavy Industries was related to self-defense personnel.

On the 30th, the Ministry of Defense imposed disciplinary actions on 93 self-defense personnel, citing command supervision and violation of warning obligations. Of these, 75 received reprimands, 17 received warnings, and Chief of the Joint Staff Saito Satoshi was fined one-tenth of his salary (for one month). The Ministry of Defense determined that Saito failed to improve the relevant procurement process, "which led to the loss of public trust in the Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces."

Deputy Minister of Defense, Masuda Kazuo, received a serious warning from the Defense Minister, Nakata Motohisa, for inadequate leadership over the Chief of the Joint Staff.

Self-defense personnel who accepted personal items will face investigations by the Self-Defense Personnel Ethics Review Committee in the future.

The Ministry of Defense also required Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to effectively implement its own improvement measures and prevent such incidents from happening again. Kawasaki Heavy Industries and JMU received severe warnings, while Sasebo Shipbuilding also received warnings.

Saito Satoshi expressed at a press conference on July 30: "It severely damaged the expectations and trust of the people, and I once again express my deepest apology." (Translated by Liu Lin)

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7533454405807440422/

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