August 8, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-us-Sani 9, 1424

TOKYO, Aug 7: The Bank of Japan said on Thursday it had punished three officials for failing to correct errors in basic data supporting the central bank’s monetary measures.

The data concerned the outstanding balance of commercial papers (CPs) and the errors were left untouched for about one year since they were internally acknowledged.

Commercial paper refers to unsecured debt instruments issued by companies to procure funds.

“We will make the utmost efforts to provide precise and accurate statistics and gain (people’s) trust in us,” Bank of Japan governor Toshihiko Fukui said in a statement.

A central bank official was quoted by the Jiji Press news agency as saying that “it was not an intentional cover-up and it has not influenced policy decisions in any way”.

The Bank of Japan had announced that the CP balance was 22.1 trillion yen ($180bn) as of March 31 this year. But the correct balance was found to be 11.9 trillion yen.

Two senior officials, who were responsible for financial market statistics when the errors were first pointed out, were reprimanded and their monthly wages cut by 10 per cent, the bank said.

The bank’s director in charge of financial markets was also admonished.

It was the first time in five years that the Bank of Japan had announced disciplinary action for its employees.—AFP