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The story
A member of the Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly billed taxpayers for a high-end French dinner costing roughly ¥200,000 per person, according to a report by Weekly Woman PRIME. With wine included on the tab, the outing has been dubbed a “tax-funded gourmet tour,” and the revelation came as part of the magazine’s ongoing series digging into goings-on inside Fukuoka’s prefectural government. On 5ch, reactions ranged widely — from curt, almost defiant one-liners, to calls to check whether other prefectures have similar spending, to demands that the corrupt assembly members and prefectural staff involved be forced to pay the money back, to resigned complaints about how voters are even supposed to vote people like this out.
Published 4:30 PM, Tue Sep 15
Weekly Woman PRIME
“Fukuoka Prefectural Government Is Changing — A Map for Reform”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article
What people said
Keep it coming lol
Honestly, I respect that kind of taste
just kidding!
Not bad, but kinda hard to follow
Fukuoka should dock whatever got squandered before setting next year's budget.
None of it ever actually comes back to residents lol
Made it onto TV now
at the very least they should dig back 10 years and demand repayment
from the corrupt assembly members and the prefectural staff who signed off on it
The staff are just as guilty
That's probably why the small-fry assembly members keep getting harassed, or in extreme cases quietly 'disappeared' one after another — Hyogo's case involved the governor himself, so people could push back hard on that one, but… (a nod to the Hyogo Prefecture governor harassment scandal)
Do they even monitor the assembly secretariat's spending in the first place?
Feels like only the governor's office ever gets watched
Could be wrong though
It's simply that politics is rotten
They could at least put that money toward study-abroad costs for bright high schoolers instead
Or have you already been tamed?
The police are even worse.
You'd find out fast if you ever had to deal with them
Background and Key Points of This Story
The source here is an installment of Weekly Woman PRIME’s ongoing series “Fukuoka Prefectural Government Is Changing — A Map for Reform,” which has been tracking local-government public spending over time. Part of the backdrop is that rules on how local assembly members’ policy-activity expenses and entertainment funds can be used — and how much of the receipts get disclosed — vary from one local government to the next, which makes the reality hard for outsiders to see. Opinions on the thread split mainly along two lines: how to read the seemingly unrepentant responses to the report, and whether this is a Fukuoka-only issue or something other prefectures should be investigated for too. Calls for repayment and institutional reform sat alongside more resigned voices arguing the only real recourse is voting the people responsible out at the next election. One thing worth flagging for readers: as of this report, it’s not yet clear whether the prefecture has acknowledged the spending or whether any repayment or disciplinary action has followed — this is still at the stage of allegations raised by the magazine’s series.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “[Fukuoka] Fukuoka Assembly Member Allegedly Spent Residents’ Tax Money on Wine — ¥200,000-a-Head French Dinner Billed to Public Funds, “Tax-Funded Gourmet Tour” Exposed.”
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