Seeking to stem the tide against reform of grassroots credit institutions, DPP lawmakers yesterday questioned the motives of leaders behind the coming protest, saying many of them were violent criminals or fraudsters.
Armed with police records, legislators from the ruling party insisted that the organizers were not the innocent farmers or fishermen they sought to represent.
More than 100,000 farmers and fishermen from across the country are expected to take to the street in Taipei tomorrow to protest the government's effort to shake up credit units of the 304 farmers' and fishermen's associations.
Of the 504 members of Taiwan Agro-Fighters United (TAFU), an umbrella group representing the associations, 255 have criminal records, DPP Legislator Tsao Chi-hung (
"Some were convicted of financial fraud while others were involved in serious violent crime," he said, citing documents from the National Police Administration. "Still others are on the hooligans list."
Though there is no evidence to prove their links to the vast debts incurred by grassroots credit cooperatives, Tsao argued that these suspicious figures were not average farmers or fishermen.
Fellow DPP Legislator Lai Ching-te (賴清德) echoed the concern, noting that TAFU Chairman Pai Tien-chih (白添枝) was prosecuted in 1999 on vote-buying charges in connection to elections for provincial association managers.
He added that the same year, Ku Yuan-chun (
Association managers have a decisive say on loan requests at their credit departments, and over the years many have taken advantage of their positions to secure loans for their cronies, the lawmakers said.
To address the problem, the government had turned 36 debt-laden credit units over to other banks and tightened risk-control measures for remaining ones as part of a campaign to reform the entire financial sector.
But on Sunday, the Cabinet decided to halt the reform under which disadvantaged farmers and fishermen said they have been denied credit.
Chuang-chin (
He said a farmers' association in Changhua County withheld small loans from local farmers but lent a retired town chief more than NT$300 million without sufficient collateral.
For loans under NT$1 million, the ratio of non-performing loans for grassroots cooperatives is 5.3 percent, a figure that jumps to 34.3 percent for loans above NT$5 million, Chiu pointed out.
He added that 110,000 farmers borrowed a total of NT$55 billion from grassroots cooperatives, whereas 4,000 "big customers" secured NT$69.8 billion in the wake of tightened risk-control measures.
"The statistics show the credit units still make serving influential clients their top business goal, but their managers have incited farmers to oppose the government so their vested interests will not be removed," Chiu said.
DPP Legislator Lin Taihua (
The TAFU issued a statement later in the day saying the data were given to DPP lawmakers in violation of laws governing financial confidentiality.
TAFU leader Pai said there are bad elements in all organizations but that most protesters were blameless.
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