The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has accused five officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's fraudulent processing of data, including double counting of "basic statistics," which are particularly important among national statistics. After certifying it, the prosecution was deferred, saying, ``I tried to normalize the fraud that has continued for many years.''
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has continued to conduct fraudulent processing, such as double-counting data sent from business operators, regarding the "Construction Work Order Statistics," which is one of the country's key statistics and shows monthly trends in orders received by the construction industry. In December last year, it was revealed that the total "orders received", which includes the total of the main contractors and subcontractors for the eight years until fiscal 2020, was overestimated by an estimated 34.5 trillion yen.
The "statistics law" prohibits the intentional creation of "fundamental statistics" that are contrary to the truth, and a civic group accused the staff involved in the creation of the statistics law violation to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office.
According to the announcement of the Special Investigation Department, as a result of the investigation, it was determined that five employees were involved in the illegal processing since January the year before.
On top of that, the staff members were all trying to normalize the illegal processing that had continued for many years, and they did not intentionally overestimate the statistics. Five people were deferred prosecution because it was unavoidable that it would take a period of time.