In-house whistle-blower brought Kyushu Electric scandal into light+

TOKYO, July 9 Kyodo -
A scandal in which Kyushu Electric Power Co. tried to orchestrate an e-mail campaign during a ministry-sponsored event to give the appearance of local support for restarting the utility's nuclear reactors was brought to light by an in-house whistle-blower, a Saga prefectural assembly member and others said Saturday.
The member also said one of the senior officials of the Saga prefectural government knew just before the event that the utility was plotting such a scheme but did not do anything to prevent it.
Akemi Muto, Saga prefectural assembly member of the Japanese Communist Party, said she obtained a written document which contained the contents of the e-mails sent by a Kyushu Electric employee to other employees and subsidiaries on June 25, the day before the government event.
In the e-mails, the employee had asked people to post comments supporting the resumption of the reactors for the event held to win over locals and broadcast live on cable TV and via the Internet.
Muto said she obtained the document from a whistle-blower in the utility's affiliate via her acquaintance and told the senior official about it on the morning of June 26, just before the event started. But the local government failed to verify the document or the e-mails by asking the utility, she said.
The senior official said he did not check it because he ''just couldn't believe'' such a thing could happen.
Kyushu Electric Chairman Shingo Matsuo admitted Friday that a former vice president of the company was directly involved in the incident, quoting him as telling deputies to ''help and cooperate'' with the government at the event. Company sources said the scandal also involved a former senior managing executive officer, who was in charge of nuclear power generation at the utility.
Matsuo told reporters Saturday that the utility plans to report to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees power firms, on the results of an internal investigation into the incident possibly early next week.