Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, 18 April: Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) is under criticism again as a chief producer was revealed to have swindled the public broadcaster of 17m yen [144,000 US dollars] by claiming expenses for fictitious business trips and was fired last Monday.
The embezzlement by Tetsushi Oshita, 43, then chief producer of the sports section in the Sapporo bureau, was unearthed at a time when the government is considering making payment of its subscription fees mandatory.
Since 2004 when a similar embezzlement case came to light, the number of households refusing to pay such fees that account for most of NHK’s revenue has sharply been increasing, seriously affecting its operation.
Questioned by NHK executives, Oshita said with his head down, “I could not stop. I may be ill,” according to a company source. He had been the Number two man in the soccer hook-up staff and did his work seriously and diligently, the source said.
He began recording fictitious business trips in January 2001 without being noticed by other company employees.
Even after a spate of scandals involving NHK, he continued to embezzle money. For about five years until April this year, the total of known NHK embezzlement cases numbered 242. Money swindled was spent for clothing, wining and dining.
After the 2004 incident, NHK created strict standards for payment of performing fees and picking broadcast writers. Goods management was also made stricter, and a method to manage even each ballpoint pen was introduced at some workplaces.
Submission of business trip reports was made obligatory along specific explanations of hotel and transportation expenses, with receipts attached. However, there was still a loophole. Such reports were not required for single-day trips.
An NHK sports reporting centre executive said, “We noticed nothing, although we thoroughly checked.”But even among NHK employees, there are some who cast doubts about the company’s oversight. “It is strange that such unfairness has been overlooked for a long period of time,” said one employee.
“You should declare a new-born NHK after checking whether there are collusive relations between producers and performers. Even now, someone is (embezzling),” a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s subcommittee on the communication and broadcasting industries told NHK Chairman Genichi Hashimoto at a meeting on Thursday last week.
At a press conference after Friday’s cabinet meeting, Heizo Takenaka, minister of internal affairs and communications, said, “The people are looking at the affairs regrettably, saying ‘again.’ A lack of (corporate) governance is causing distrust among audiences, making them reluctant to pay subscription fees.” Angry telephone calls are flooding NHK, a huge media organization with about 17,000 employees including those at its subsidiaries.
With the latest incident, NHK has ordered all departments to investigate their business and check business trips as quickly as possible to prevent a recurrence.
Toyohiko Harada, broadcasting general manager, told a news conference, “It is painful for us to have been unable to get to the bottom of the unfairness. We will make sure to check loopholes and errors in oversight by all means.” The new case of embezzlement is badly shaking a “new-born NHK” which had begun to move on a three-year programme from this fiscal year. “The current scandal should be made the last one,” said an employee.
(Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0040 gmt 18 Apr 06 via BBC Monitoring)
