A man in his 70s in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, has given the city a sizable gift. However, some are questioning whether he should have been a little less trusting of the government body.
The unidentified man donated 20 gold bars, each one kilogram in size. At current market prices, the haul comes out to 330 million yen ($2.27M). The man told the city that he had accumulated the investment through many years of hard work.
The donor has expressed his desire that the money be used to improve emergency shelters in the city, starting with bathrooms. According to the city, he wants to ensure that facilities are accessible to the elderly and disabled.
The city can’t simply use the gift, however. Legally, it first has to pass a resolution to sell it on the gold market. It says that, once that’s done, it’ll use the gift as the man intended.
Should he have trusted the city?
The story drew a large number of reactions on UJ’s Threads account. The first thing that drew people’s attention was that the gold bars are from Mitsubishi. That surprised many who didn’t realize that the sprawling keiretsu has its hand in many pies – including gold, which it sells under the umbrella of Mitsubishi Materials.
While some of our commenters lauded the man, others rebuked him for trusting that government officials wouldn’t misuse the funds.
“That gold is gone,” one said. “He should have put it in the trust, the city will surely waste it,” said another.
It’s unclear if these suspicions are based on actual past incidents or just a general distrust of government. However, some Japanese commenters agreed. One commenter on Yahoo! News JP said that Sakurai operates at a budget surplus. It likely doesn’t need the donation and could afford to improve city shelters on its own, if it so desired.
This type of large gifting to cities in Japan isn’t a rare occurrence. Several years back, we wrote about someone who’d sent a box of moldy yen to Ehime Prefecture’s governor. Others have made similar gestures to local cities, Shinto shrines, and Buddhist temples.
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Sources
７０代男性が金塊２０キロを奈良県桜井市に寄贈、３億３０００万円相当…「避難所の環境整備に活用してほしい」. Yomiuri Shimbun
金塊20本、3.3億円分を寄贈 奈良の70代男性「避難所整備に」. Asahi Shimbun
