This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has taken a ride on the trains in Tokyo and noticed that there is a huge amount of seemingly pointless advertisements for Tokyo water (which include Tokyo Olympic logos):

The Tokyo metropolitan government’s waterworks bureau has set aside 1,870 million yen in advertising expenses for its fiscal 2009 budget to publicize not only water-related programs but also the Japanese capital’s campaign to host the 2016 Olympics, metropolitan government sources said Thursday.

The amount represents a threefold increase from the bureau’s fiscal 2006 budget and a twofold advance from its fiscal 2008 budget.

Soji Higashioka, head of the waterworks bureau, denied that his bureau increased the advertising budget to finance the capital’s publicity costs in vying for the summer Olympics against rivals Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid.

“It is intended to improve the image of Tokyo’s tap water,” Higashioka said. “We have only decided to use the advertising expenses also for Tokyo’s Olympic campaign incidentally.”

A clever way to hide spending that is really aimed at increasing public support for Tokyo’s Olympic bid, or just normal behavior from a city known to flush money down the toilet?

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