Many workers saw or heard of Hyogo governor’s power harassment, souvenir demands: survey

KOBE — A Hyogo Prefectural Assembly panel investigating alleged power harassment by Gov. Motohiko Saito has reported that nearly 40% of prefectural government employees surveyed had either witnessed or heard about his power harassment, including demanding souvenirs during his inspection trips.

The special investigative panel on Aug. 23 released an interim report on a survey it conducted targeting all of the prefectural government’s approximately 9,700 employees, to which some 6,700 responded. The interim report covered responses from 4,568 staff members.

According to the survey, 38.3% of respondents had either witnessed or heard about the governor’s power harassment. There was also new testimony regarding suspicions that Gov. Saito had accepted a large number of gifts while on duty.

Likening the governor’s inspection tours to school trips and the gifts he received to souvenirs, one respondent wrote, “The governor would never go on a school trip that didn’t have souvenirs.”

Many respondents also testified that the governor received local specialties everywhere he officially visited, ranging from sake to crabs, oysters and onions. One prefectural government worker wrote, “I’ve heard that it is important (for the places the governor visits) to always prepare specialties as souvenirs to curry his favor,” and this was apparently common knowledge within the prefectural government.

On Aug. 23, the investigation panel additionally held a closed-door hearing of six prefectural government employees as witnesses to find out whether the governor committed power harassment as he was accused of doing in a whistleblower’s written statement.

According to the panel members who met the press following the hearing, several prefectural government workers testified that they were severely rebuked by the governor or witnessed such scenes. With regard to Gov. Saito’s repeated remarks that his own words and actions were part of his “operational guidance” for staffers, one of the prefectural government employees reportedly told the hearing, “He’s just shrugging it off. It’s maddening.”

In March, the then director general of the prefectural government’s Nishiharima District Administration Office sent a statement accusing the governor of power harassment and other allegations to the press and prefectural assembly members, before reporting his actions to the whistleblowing contact within the prefectural government on April 4. However, this worker was not given whistleblower protection and was handed a three-month disciplinary suspension in May. He was later found dead in July.

At the Aug. 23 press conference, one investigative panel member revealed that senior prefectural officials had met to decide on punishment for the director general. Three prefectural officials recommended waiting until they received the results of the whistleblowing allegations but this was rejected by higher-ups, according to the testimony.

Furthermore, it emerged that the prefectural government’s personnel affairs section examined the staff email server on March 22, two days after the governor learned of the whistleblowing statement, to try to pinpoint the sources of information cited in the statement.

Kenichi Okutani, chairman of the investigation panel, told reporters, “From the beginning, the prefectural government had no intention of investigating (what was written in) the statement, but seems to have been eager to identify the creator of the document and punish them.” He added, “The series of responses taken by the prefectural government leading up to the punishment (of the director general) may constitute systematic power harassment.”

Another prefectural worker told the hearing that they witnessed the governor throwing stationery at a top prefectural official when he became angered during an exchange. There were also testimonies that the governor would give staffers instructions via social media at 11 p.m. or even 1 a.m., as well as on public holidays. “I have no time to relax,” one witness told the hearing, while another complained, “It was such a pain to be given an abrupt instruction on the first day of my three-day holiday.” Another employee told the hearing, “Never before in my life had anyone done a thing like this to me.”

Gov. Saito, meanwhile, denied once again that he would resign over the scandal, vowing before reporters on Aug. 23, “I will devote myself to my duties while properly responding to the investigation.”

(Japanese original by Takuhide Nakao, Kotaro Ono, Kosuke Yamamoto, Yuria Kiyama and Mami Yamada, Kobe Bureau; Kenta Sunaoshi and Atsuko Nakata, Osaka City News Department)