A Cabinet minister denied reports Thursday that he had said a school operator at the center of favoritism allegations against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would open a new university department two months before the project received government approval.
Regional revitalization minister Kozo Yamamoto said, "I didn't make comments that (the school project) had been awarded to Shikoku."
Kyodo News and other media outlets, citing Japan Veterinary Medical Association sources, had reported that the minister told senior association officials that the new department would be constructed in the western Japan island of Shikoku during a meeting on Nov. 17.
In January, Kake Educational Institution, run by Abe's close friend Kotaro Kake, was selected by the government to establish the first veterinary school in half a century at one of its universities in a specially deregulated zone in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture.
Yamamoto is in charge of the Cabinet Office, which oversees specially deregulated zones.
Abe's Cabinet has seen its approval ratings plunge due partly to the allegations that the prime minister swayed the approval process for the new veterinary school. Abe is scheduled to attend ad hoc Diet committee sessions on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the matter.
According to the veterinary association sources, Yamamoto visited the group's office on Nov. 17 to explain the government's policy of only approving the opening of a new veterinary department in an area lacking a similar school.
The association has long been opposed to the establishment of a new school due to concern about a glut of vets.
Referring to Kake Educational Institution, Yamamoto said the new department would be established in Shikoku because the region has yet to implement steps against infections contracted via animals, the sources said.
On Thursday morning, Yamamoto said he did not specifically refer to the Kake institution and told the veterinary association that Kyoto was another candidate site for a new school.
Kyoto Sangyo University aimed to open a new vet school in the former Japanese capital but eventually gave up as neighboring Osaka has a similar department.
Yamamoto told reporters that the account of the meeting attributed to veterinary group sources was "incorrect because it mixed up the association's assumptions and my remarks."
Together with local governments, the Kake institution has applied for permission to launch a veterinary department in the specially deregulated zone 15 times since 2007, but all of the applications were rejected.
The issue has drawn public attention since Kihei Maekawa, former vice education minister, vouched for the authenticity of ministry documents that indicated Abe's influence in the school project approval process. The papers employed phrases such as "what the highest level of the prime minister's office has said" and "in line with the prime minister's wishes."
