TOKYO, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been grilled in parliament recently over the government's sale of a plot of state-owned land to an educational entity for far below the valuation price.
According to local reports, Moritomo Gakuen, a private-school operator, bought the 8,770-square-meter piece of land last June in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, for 134 million yen (1.18 million U.S. dollars), equivalent to only 14 percent of its appraisal price.
The land, according to local reports, is intended for a new elementary school to be opened in April with the prime minister's wife Akie as its honorary principal.
The educational entity initially signed a ten-year lease with the government for the land and pledged to buy the land ten years later.
However, it later claimed that it had found contamination and waste materials underground during construction of the school.
The government estimated the land to be worth 953 million yen and the costs of decontamination and removing the waste materials to be around 819 million yen, and as a result sold the land to Moritomo Gakuen at a price of 134 million yen.
Meanwhile, the government also planned to give Moritomo Gakuen 131.76 million yen for decontamination and removing the waste, which means that the educational entity only needed to pay around 2 million yen for the land, according to an investigation by the Democratic Party.
The government initially declined to disclose the sale price of the land and only made it public this month upon strong requests from the opposition parties.
Yasunori Kagoike, president of Moritomo Gakuen, is said to probably have close ties with Abe and his cabinet, as he is head of the Osaka branch of Nippon Kaigi, or Japan Conference, a far-right wing nationalist group that is behind Abe's cabinet.
Abe denied last week in parliament that he had anything to do with the scandal, and said that if he were found involved, he would resign as prime minister and Diet member.
He also said that he had rejected a request to have the school bear his name and was unaware that his name had been used in seeking donations for the school.
Finance Minister Taro Aso reportedly said that the procedures of selling the land "have no flaws."
Japan's largest opposition Democratic Party, however, has demanded that Yasunori Kagoike be summoned to the parliament to explain the issue.
Kenji Eda, a senior member of the Democratic Party, told a press conference on Wednesday that as the school had used the prime minister's name to solicit donations, Yasunori Kagoike is obligated to explain the relationship between the school and Abe.
Keiji Kokuta, a lawmaker from the Japanese Communist Party, said that the educational entity should make public relevant materials on the issue and explain whether any politician is involved.
The Moritomo Gakuen, however, has been quoted by local media as denying that the school had received any favorable treatment from the government.
Other than the land scandal, the educational entity has also been under fire recently for a kindergarten that it runs.
The kindergarten has been widely criticized for handing out to students' parents materials slurring Korean and Chinese residents in Japan and posting remarks on its web page that could have been construed as hatred speech.
