Tokyo: Japan’s sports minister Hakubun Shimomura, a close conservative ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has tendered his resignation over the scrapping of plans for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics centrepiece stadium after a cost blowout.
Shimomura told a post-cabinet meeting news conference on Friday that Abe had asked him to stay on until a cabinet reshuffle planned for next month.
He will return half his pay for the six months through September in atonement, Kyodo news agency said.
“I have caused great worry and trouble to many of the people over the national stadium problem,” Shimomura said, adding that Abe had reluctantly accepted his resignation.
Abe announced in July that plans for the stadium, also meant to have been the centrepiece for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, would be scrapped after the estimated cost of UK-based Zaha Hadid Architects’ futuristic design ballooned to over $2 billion (Dh7.34 billion), nearly twice the original figure.
