Nearly 40 percent of employees at the Hyogo prefectural office in western Japan have said in a survey that they saw or heard Hyogo’s governor engage in possible harassment.
Hyogo Governor Saito Motohiko is facing an allegation of harassment and other misconduct. A special committee of the local assembly carried out a survey covering all prefectural office employees. More than 4,500 of them, or nearly half, had responded as of August 5.
The interim results were released on Friday.
The survey shows 38.3 percent of the respondents said they have seen or heard what may be abuse of power by the governor.
Respondents wrote that “the governor got furious in his official car and kicked the front seat,” that “he hit the desk and got angry,” and “he would get angry if the media didn’t come to events he attended.”
A total of 20.7 percent said they have seen or heard about suspicions that Saito accepted gifts. One respondent wrote, “The governor tried on a leather jacket worth 400,000 yen and he said, ‘This is good. Can I have it?'” The amount is worth about 2,700 dollars.
The committee that conducted the survey said many answers were based on what respondents heard from others.