A high-ranking press official for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has resigned, the government said Monday, after she drew fire for being among bureaucrats accepting lavish dinners paid for by a broadcaster that employs the premier's eldest son in violation of an ethics code.

Cabinet Public Relations Secretary Makiko Yamada was hospitalized Sunday afternoon due to ill health requiring about two weeks of treatment and informed the government later that day of her desire to quit as she can no longer fulfill her duties, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato.

Her departure is yet another blow to Suga, who has been struggling with falling approval ratings for his Cabinet after a series of scandals involving government officials and amid the public perception that he lacks leadership in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Yamada, 60, came under criticism after she was found to have been treated to a dinner worth 74,000 yen ($700) in Tokyo in 2019 hosted by Tohokushinsha Film Corp executives, including Seigo Suga.

At the time, she was a senior bureaucrat at the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry. The company runs a satellite broadcasting business, to which the ministry grants licenses.

Suga said he deemed Yamada's resignation was "unavoidable" and apologized at the House of Representatives Budget Committee for the scandal involving his son, saying the government must "deeply reflect on severely damaging people's trust."

"I had appointed her as a Cabinet public relations secretary as I had high hopes for her, as someone who had much experience under the previous administration and had also served as a secretary" for then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Suga told reporters later in the day.

"It is very regrettable that she is leaving like this," Suga said, adding the government plans to pick her successor as soon as possible.

A Cabinet press secretary moderates Suga's press conferences, and Suga could hold one within this week at the earliest.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato did not disclose the amount of her retirement payment, citing privacy. Yamada was due to appear in parliament to face questioning over the scandal later Monday.

Yukio Edano, who heads the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, was critical of Yamada's resignation as "coming too late" and said at the lower house committee that Suga should have asked her to resign last week when other officials were reprimanded over the scandal.

Eleven officials of the communications ministry were reprimanded last week after they were wined and dined by Tohokushinsha Film executives, some of them by Suga's son. Yamada, however, escaped punishment as she has already left the ministry, and the ethics code does not cover an individual granted special status to serve in a government post.

The National Public Service Ethics Law prohibits central government officials from receiving favors from companies in sectors it regulates.

Yamada had offered to forfeit 60 percent of her salary as a press official for one month, or approximately 700,000 yen, over the scandal, but opposition legislators had called for her resignation.

She became Japan's first female Cabinet public relations secretary under Suga and the first female executive secretary for a prime minister under his predecessor Shinzo Abe.

Tohokushinsha has subjected Seigo Suga to disciplinary action and dismissed him as head of the hobby and entertainment community operations at the firm's media business division. Tohokushinsha President Kiyotaka Ninomiya has also stepped down over the scandal.

Many officials in the communications ministry voiced surprise and regret over the departure of Yamada, who was a leading figure and a symbol of female empowerment, while some others are worried about the possibility that the punishment given to the reprimanded officials could be reviewed and made heavier.

"I wonder what would happen to the senior officials who have been treated to meals multiple times when she resigns for being treated to one dinner, albeit it was expensive," said one official.

Yamada's hospitalization, however, came as a no surprise in Japan, where it is not rare for a public figure to suddenly vanish from the public eye to receive treatment when they become embroiled in scandals.

Former Japanese farm minister Takamori Yoshikawa, who was indicted without arrest for receiving 5 million yen in bribes from a representative of an egg producer Akita Foods Co., was hospitalized to treat arrhythmia late last year.

Former upper house member Anri Kawai, who resigned after being found guilty of vote-buying in the 2019 election, was also admitted to a hospital in March last year and later turned in a diagnosis saying she requires rest for about two weeks due to a nervous breakdown.

==Kyodo

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