Japan's internal affairs minister Terada Minoru says that his local support group had mistakenly written the name of a deceased person as being in charge of accounting in political funds reports.

Terada spoke at a Lower House committee meeting on Thursday.

He was accused by opposition lawmakers of making false statements in the reports for 2019 and 2020.

The minister responded that the mistake occurred because the documents' format was taken from previous reports. He said the accounting officer's name had not been updated.

Terada said he has asked his support group to immediately correct them.

The head of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party's Policy Research Committee, Nagatsuma Akira, called for Terada's resignation. He said that people are compelled to think there is an ulterior motive when they see that a deceased person had sealed the reports.

Nagatsuma said that as the top official overseeing political funds, resigning the post of minister is one way of taking responsibility.

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