Kansai Electric Power President Shigeki Iwane on Friday conceded that its 20 top executives and employees received money and goods worth over 320 million yen (3 million dollars).
At a news conference Iwane offered a sincere apology but he declined to step down, adding that they had received gifts from former local official whose town hosts the company’s nuclear power plant.
Iwane said the 20 people who received the money and the items over a seven-year period leading up to 2017, included Kansai Electric chairman Makoto Yagi and him.
He, however, refused to disclose who the other 18 were and what exactly each of them had received.
The Kyodo News agency reported that the local official was Eiji Moriyama, who served as deputy mayor in Takahama Town, which is home to the utility’s Takahama Nuclear Power Station.
Kyodo said Moriyama, who died in March at the age of 90, received about 300 million yen from a local construction company.
The disclosure comes eight days after the Tokyo District Court handed down a not guilty verdict to three former Tokyo Electric Power executives over the 2011 nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
dpa/NAN
