The allegation made by fugitive tycoon Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪) against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) regarding political donations should do little harm to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as the incident reflects the government's resolve to eliminate "black gold" politics, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday.
"The public should know by now that the DPP-led government means what it says in terms of wiping out `black gold' politics over the years," Yu said. "No one should doubt our resolve to do so and nobody knew how determined we were until Chen Yu-hao came out to make the allegation."
Yu made the remark yesterday morning while attending the Chinese New Year greeting ceremony of the association of Ilan County residents in Taipei City (
Yu said that he suspected Chen Yu-hao's allegation was a last-ditch attempt to prevent the auctioning off of his subsidiary companies, including Tuntex Petrochemicals Inc (
"The reason that we are auctioning off the stakes in his companies is because we want to show the public that we're serious about financial reform and that it's necessary to write off bad loans. Black-gold politicking has to be eradicated," Yu said.
The government is scheduled to sell 47 percent of Tuntex Petrochemicals' shares, as well as shares in another seven subsidiary companies of the Tuntex Group totaling 275 million shares, on Feb. 16. Banks lending money to the group hope to earn NT$6 billion from the auction.
According to Yu, Chen Yu-hao and his companies left debts totaling as much as NT$60 billion in Taiwan. These include debts owed by Grand Union Construction Co Ltd (
While the group is experiencing a financial crisis here, its businesses on the other side of the Strait are booming. According to tallies made available by the Ministry of Finance, Chen Yu-hao has invested more than NT$13 billion in China and none have borrowed money from Chinese financial institutions. His companies in China were also among the top-10 taxpayers in China.
Yu said that Chen Yu-hao's accusations might be rooted in one of his subsidiary company's, Tung Ting Gas Corp (東鼎液化瓦斯), losing the 25-year, NT$395 billion contract to supply liquid natural gas to the Taiwan Power Company's (Taipower) 4,000-megawatt thermal power plant (大潭電廠) in Tatan, Taoyuan.
Taipower awarded the contract to another state-run company, Chinese Petroleum Corp (
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