The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday that the party would deal with its party assets before the 2012 presidential election as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised to handle the issue after taking up the party chairmanship today.
Ma won the election for KMT chairman in July and will take the helm of the party at the KMT’s 18th national convention today.
Ma will accept the party’s flag from predecessor Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and outline reform goals in his speech at the handover ceremony today. Cleaning up the party’s assets will be the priority in his party reform plan, the KMT said.
Lin Yung-juei (林永瑞), director of the KMT’s administrative management commission, said yesterday that the party would seek to sell its remaining asset — the Central Investment Co (中央投資公司) — by 2012, and that the party would refrain from owning any businesses in the future.
PROCEEDS
The company is estimated to be worth more than NT$20 billion (US$600 million). Lin said about NT$15 billion of the proceeds from the sale would be used to pay for retirement pensions and to pay off debts and the remainder would be donated to charity groups.
RE-PROMISE
In 2005 when Ma took the helm of the party for the first time, he vowed to make the KMT an “asset-free” party by last year.
The KMT sold the building housing the Institute on Policy Research and Development in the Muzha (木柵) area for NT$4.3 billion and three media companies — China Television Co, Broadcasting Corporation of China and Central Motion Picture — to the China Times Group for NT$9.3 billion.
However, Ma failed to sell the Central Investment Co before he stepped down in 2006. It is believed that much of the KMT’s portfolio of “stolen” assets was laundered through the stock market during the 1990s.
A Control Yuan report in 2002 said the party still had more than 400 properties that it had acquired illegally.
At today’s handover ceremony, Ma will renew his promise to make the party “asset-free,” and pledge to obtain funds for elections via fund-raising events, the party said.
Also See: Majority in poll doubt Ma’s ability to clean up KMT
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