State-owned land use to get attention

The government plans to establish a National Property Committee (國有財產管理委員會) to function as a supervisory body to oversee the use and management of state-own properties, the premier's office said yesterday.

"The committee will facilitate coordination among various government agencies to make ensure efficient property management," an aide to the premier, who requested anonymity, said.

Premier Yu Shyi-kun is expected to chair and convene the first meeting of the yet-to-be-founded committee on Saturday, overhauling the use of some NT$6 trillion in state-owned properties.

Yu will take over the committee's chairmanship, whereas Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (林信義) will act as vice chairman and Minister of Finance Lee Yung-san (李庸三) as secretariat, according to the National Property Bureau under the Ministry of Finance, which is making a draft of the committee's organization plan.

The bureau's secretary general, Su Wei-chen (蘇維成), said the committee will be composed of about 20 members, including six to seven individuals from the private sector who will be nominated by the premier and have property-management-related expertise.

The remaining committee members will be representatives from government agencies which already supervise state property, such as the Council for Economic Planning and Development, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the Central Personnel Administration and the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Su said.

On a monthly basis, committee members will address issues regarding national property that have been abused, illegally occupied and poorly managed, Su said.

The committee will also probe into the actual business performance of state-run companies, which will no longer be allowed to count on selling state-own land to gloss over their business losses, the premier's aide said.

He said, however, that the premier hasn't finalized a draft of the committee's structure, and that as a result, no committee members have yet been named.

Bureau statistics show that the central government is in posession of property worth more than NT$6 trillion, along with securities with a market value of over NT$1 trillion.

The central government recently took management control of properties that used to be under the provincial government's charge. A census will be conducted to take an exact accounting of state-owned property, Su said.

State-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖) owns 55,000 hectares of land, prompting legislators yesterday to question its newly appointed chairman's land policies. Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) made assurances, saying, "Taisugar's properties belong to the public. As long as due process and reasonable prices are respected, I look forward to the release of this land."