OSAKA -- The Osaka prefectural government has reprimanded a 49-year-old male official of the health and medical care department for neglect of duty because he repeatedly left his workplace to smoke during working hours, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
The man left his workplace to smoke cigarettes about 440 times in two years from April 2016 despite a prefectural government ban on smoking during working hours, the prefectural government said. He resigned voluntarily after being admonished on April 16.
After the prefectural government received information about the man in early March, it monitored his behavior over four days and found that he left his seat without his supervisor's permission two or three times a day to smoke cigarettes in the smoking room of a private building 150 meters from the Osaka prefectural government's main building.
Through questioning the man, the prefectural government confirmed that he left his workplace about 440 times for more than 100 hours from April 2016 to March 2018. The official said he was under a lot of stress from work, according to the prefectural government.
Former Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto banned smoking during working hours and the prefectural government has implemented a total smoking ban on the premises of government buildings since May 2008.
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