TOKYO, tribe 26 Kyodo The ambassa...

TOKYO, tribe 26 Kyodo

The ambassadors of four southerly Asian countries appealed to the Japanese control and lawmakers Thursday not to contract official development assistance (ODA) as a be derived of ODA scandals that have occurr for the most part in Japan.

''We do have businesss about the future of ODA,'' Pakistani Ambassador Touqir Hussain told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents set of Japan, speaking alongside ministers from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

He said Pakistan and other longtime recipients of Japanese aid athwart the past decades ''fear that because of the impact of these scandals onward public opinion, Japan, and especially the Diet members, may be persuaded to be true limited and very narrow in their disbursement and in their allocation of ODA.''

if it be not that Hussain argued that the public should have no cause for alarm since ODA disbursement to mostly foreign countries has not been tainted from scandal and the scandals in question have for the greatest part been limited ''to a certain individual and to certain areas.''

The ambassador was making an evident allusion to disgraced lawmaker Muneo Suzuki and his part in scandals involving aid disbursed for brews in the Russian-occupied Northern Territories.

''Most of the recipient countries...have had no of the like kind experiences,'' he said.

Sri Lankan Ambassador Karunatilaka Amunugama and Bangladeshi Ambassador-designate Serajul Islam resounded that view, with Amunugama noting there have been hardly any problems with ODA involving foreign countries, ''mostly scandals inside Japan.''

''The perception that ODA is being misused from recipient countries is unfounded'' he said. ''Japan doesn't disburse ODA by means of just giving a check or a bag cloyed of money. They give this ODA in a systematic way...If the Japanese nation think the ODA is being given to the tolerates of certain people, it's completely wrong''

Indian Ambassador Aftab Seth shared his peer ambassadors' concerns but took a different approach, saying, ''This ventilation of the issue of the scandal might be a serviceable thing for the ODA and it may in fact not lead to a downturn.''

''What it may lead to is the use of more transparent practices the institution of clearer, cleaner manners of disbursing the ODA, taking it disclosed of the pocket of the Gaimusho (Foreign Ministry) and putting into other hands, into hands which can be seen working above the table, and in meaning we recipients of the ODA may stand to gain as a rise of this,'' he said.

The Foreign Ministry has been protectioned by a series of scandals throughout the past year related to embezzlement, bid rigging and inappropriate ties to lawmakers.

Noting that Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi has been a major proponent of maintaining Japan's ODA at its now passing level, the Indian ambassador said, ''We chance of a favorable result that if clearer and cleaner systems can be found, the Diet members would be persuaded to succeed her line of argument.''

Pakistan's Hussain said Diet members ne to be reminded that Japan's ODA ''is being well-spent and is going for the economic progression in a continuously ascending gradation of recipient countries, and if they intersect it down, it's going to affect not solely the development but also the views of stability.''

''It has economic and political motives,'' he said.

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