Japanese environment minister to be appointed acting farm minister

The Japanese government will soon appoint Environment Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi as acting agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister to take place of Toshikatsu Matsuoka who committed suicide and died on Monday, Kyodo News said.

Matsuoka died by hanging himself in his living room at a parliamentary housing building in central Tokyo. He was found to have committed suicide at around 12:18 p.m. when his secretary went to the apartment to look for him since he did not appear at a regular meeting in the morning.

He had already lost heartbeats when being found in the room and was confirmed dead in a hospital at around at 2 p.m..

The 62-year-old of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been in a quagmire of a series of political funds scandals, including acceptance of donations from companies suspected of rigging bid for public works projects.

Two of his campaign fund management bodies have received 13 million yen in donations from 14 Kumamoto-based contractors, who have been awarded construction projects by the Japan Green Resources Agency (J-Green), a government-controlled forestry management body suspected of having been involved in rigging bids.

The minister has allegedly received some 8.5 million yen in donations from contractors implicated in bid rigging for forestry road construction projects.

He was demanded by the opposition camp to resign.

Matsuoka became Lower House member in 1990. The term of farm minister was his first in the Cabinet.

Source: Xinhua