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Bloomberg
Kansai Electric Power Co is set to disclose more details of a nuclear payoff scandal as investor scrutiny intensifies and the government orders an independent investigation.
The utility plans to identify the 20 company officials who accepted gifts, including details about the cash and goods they received, at a press conference at 2 pm in Osaka, according to Kyodo News. The briefing will follow an extraordinary board meeting, according to a person with knowledge of the plan, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
Kansai Electric is seeking to contain the damage from the revelation that executives took payments from a company that works on its nuclear plant in Takahama, which were funneled through one of the town’s former deputy mayors.
The scandal threatens to further undermine public trust in Japan’s nuclear power industry, an important platform within PM Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, and may delay the restart of three of the company’s idled reactors. Every month one of the restarts is delayed will saddle the utility with extra fuel costs of $33 million, according to Nomura Securities.
Pressure on the utility mounted after Chairman Makoto Yagi said he received cash and gifts starting in 2006. That clashed with a timeline
offered earlier by President Shigeki Iwane, who said 320 million yen in money and goods was distributed to 20 officials between 2011 and 2018.
On Tuesday, Economy Minister Isshu Sugawara said the country can’t execute its energy policies, which include restarting nuclear plants, without maintaining public accountability, and that he has ordered an independent investigation into the payoffs.