Town In Western Japan To Discipline Mayor, Others Over Mistaken Remittance
A town in western Japan has decided to discipline its mayor and others over an incident in which state cash allowances for local families worth 46.3 million yen, or about 362,000 dollars, were mistakenly transferred to a resident's bank account.
The incident occurred last month in Yamaguchi Prefecture's Abu Town. The resident refused to pay back the money. He argued that he had spent all the funds gambling online, and that he had already transferred the money to payment service agencies.
But the town says it used legal procedures to recover some of the money from those agencies. It says it has gotten back about 335,000 dollars.
The town decided on Tuesday to take disciplinary action. It said it will impose pay cuts and other penalties on seven town officials.
Mayor Hanada Norihiko's salary will be slashed by 50 percent for three months. The deputy mayor's salary will be cut by 40 percent, and the salary of the official in charge of accounts will be slashed by 10 percent, during the same period. Four others will be reprimanded or warned.
The disciplinary measures will be implemented once the town assembly approves an ordinance regarding the pay cuts for the mayor and the deputy mayor at a session that is scheduled to be held next month.
The mayor said he made the decision about the disciplinary steps once the prospect of recovering most of the money was in sight.
Earlier this month, police arrested the 24-year-old resident who is suspected of transferring the money into other accounts, even though he knew that the town had mistakenly deposited the funds into his bank account.