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Ex-Pineapple czar says Lien owes him

Former Taiwan Pineapple Group (台鳳) chairman Huang Tsung-hung (黃宗宏) said yesterday that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) owed him NT$10.91 million.

At a press conference yesterday, Huang accused Lien as well as other KMT politicians of forgetting about him after walking away with his money.

He displayed photocopies of checks that he claimed he issued to KMT politicians as political donations. One of the checks was made out to KMT policy convener Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權).

"They can deny all my political donations to the KMT, but at least Lien should pay back the amount that he owed me," Huang said.

According to Huang, the NT$10.91 million was for the taxes on a purchase of two pieces of land in Taichung County. Lien bought the land, approximately 700 ping in total, on Jan. 20, 1998.

Lien asked then-legislator Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元) to help with the payment, according to Huang.

Huang said that Wu had a close relationship with Lien and that he didn't think twice when Wu asked came to him for help.

"Wu said that Lien hoped that I could pay off the taxes for him and that he would then pay me back, with interest, which never happened," Huang said.

Huang also complained that his political donations to the KMT seem to have been ignored, adding that Tseng and Pingtung County Councilor Cheng Pao-chuan (鄭寶川) denied their relationship with Huang during TV interviews.

According to Huang, he donated at least NT$3.4 million for Tseng when he was running in the legislative election and another NT$600,000 for Cheng in his bid to become a councilor.

Asked why he decided make the allegations against the KMT right before the election, Huang said, "I simply hated their propaganda against their opponents."

Huang also wrote to the media on Monday, stating that he had twice provided political donations to the KMT. Huang said that his donations were similar to the bribery scandal involving former Tuntex chairman Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪).

Huang said the first donation was made in 1998, when he gave NT$100 million to the KMT as a political donation to prevent the stock price of Taiwan Pineapple from falling.

The second donation was made in 1999 when Wu, then a legislator, offered to help Huang get a loan from a state-run bank if Huang agreed to pay a kickback, according to Huang.

The donations were both linked to Lien, and Huang implied that Lien took a part of the donations.
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