TOKYO, Dec 14: A Japanese architect at the heart of a widening scandal admitted on Wednesday he had done wrong by ignoring earthquake-resistance building standards but said others were also responsible for the scam that has shocked the nation.
The scandal has outraged the public in this earthquake-prone country, where memories are still vivid of a 1995 tremor that killed more than 6,400 in the western city of Kobe.
Architect Hidetsugu Aneha is believed to have been involved in designing 208 buildings and of fabricating quake safety data for at least 71 of them to make them appear safe when in fact they could not withstand even moderate tremors, Infrastructure Ministry officials said.
After signing a written oath before a panel in parliament’s lower house, Aneha, 48, said he had been pressured by at least one construction company to falsify data in order to cut costs.
“Of course I was responsible because I falsified documents. But I could not do that alone,” Aneha told the panel.
He said he had failed to resist pressure to violate laws out of fear that he would be put out of business.
“I have a sickly wife, and if I turned down (orders) my income would be close to zero,” he said. “While I knew that I should not do it, I was weak.
“I have caused grave trouble to condominium residents and the people of Japan. I am sorry,” Aneha said, and bowed deeply.
Lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties grilled Aneha for more than two hours.
“You played a grave role in building ‘killer condominiums’ and caused serious financial trouble to thousands of people,” Fumihiro Himori of the Social Democratic Party told Aneha.
LAX CHECKS, UPSET HOMEOWNERS: A former executive of a now-defunct building firm testified before the panel later on Wednesday and rejected Mr Aneha’s argument that he had pressured the architect to forge the documents.
“I was not involved in Aneha’s fabrication at all,” said Akira Shinozuka, former executive of now-defunct Kimura Construction Co. “Mr Aneha is a professional and therefore I did not think he would violate laws.”
Experts said the scandal was the result of attempts to cut costs and of lax oversight of the building industry.
As part of a package of measures to deal with the scandal, the government said last week it would give financial help to residents moving out of unsafe apartment blocks and offer tax breaks to those who bought homes with long-term loans.
Private inspection firms entrusted by the government with certifying building designs had failed to catch Aneha’s faked data, and the 48 certified inspection firms were being checked.
In his testimony, Aneha said inspection firms had not even gone through his faked documents.
“Because the contents were simple, I thought they would be found out when they were presented to inspection firms,” he said.
“It’s a fact that they did not check.”
Residents of the affected condominiums, many of whom bought the properties on long-term loans, were little moved by Aneha’s tale of pressure and fear of hard times.
“Rather than getting mad, I was disgusted,” one of the residents told public broadcaster NHK.
An ordinary family apartment costs about 30 million yen ($250,000) in Tokyo, and many Japanese buy homes with long-term loans stretching to 35 years.
The Infrastructure Ministry, which filed a criminal complaint against Aneha last week, has said it would inspect all buildings built over the past five years by three builders linked to the architect.
Nevertheless, analysts believe the scandal will not affect the real estate market in Japan.
“We believe the negative news flow of the past several weeks will have little impact on the real estate market,” Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Yoji Otani said in a research note released on Wednesday. —Reuters
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