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
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)