The Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement (CIPAS) will investigate assets owned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and may call key party members, such as former KMT investment chief Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英), and possibly former presidents Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), for questioning, committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday.
The committee was founded in accordance with the Act Governing the Handling of Illegal Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), which was promulgated by the Presidential Office on Wednesday.
Koo on Wednesday said that the three main goals of the committee are to investigate the KMT’s current assets, define which ones are illegal and relaunch investigations into controversial cases, such as the sale of China Television Co (中視), the Broadcasting Corp of China (中廣) and the Central Motion Pictures Corp (中央電影) allegedly far below their value.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
In a radio interview yesterday, Koo confirmed that Agency Against Corruption Deputy Director-General Hung Pai-ken (洪培根) has been appointed committee vice chairman.
“I talked to Hung [on Wednesday], telling him that prosecutorial units’ help would be sought when probing illegal party assets that call for criminal investigation,” he said.
Koo blasted the KMT for its reported plan to pay its staff five months’ salary in advance, saying that pre-paying salaries is totally unheard of.
He said that once the act took effect, the KMT’s illegal assets should not be further used for illegitimate purposes.
“The employees could be paid with this month’s salary, but not pre-paid ones,” Koo said.
The committee will accept complaints from individuals whose assets might have been illegally obtained by the KMT, he said, adding that the party is obligated to return or compensate individuals or organizations once the committee has determined that the complaint is justified.
Koo said it would be a great challenge to determine the right price and compensation if the property in question had been sold to at third party.
The committee will work closely with prosecutorial authorities to gather evidence and will investigate certain individuals, such as Liu and past directors of the KMT’s Administration and Management Committee, Koo said.
Liu was widely known as the “KMT’s major treasurer,” who was in charge of the party’s investments in the 1990s.
Koo said that if necessary, Ma and Lee would also be interviewed to provide information about the assets.
According to the act, all party assets obtained after Aug. 15, 1945 — with the exception of party membership fees, political donations, political party subsidies from the government, election campaign fund donations and income from natural sources and legal transactions — are all presumed to be illegal.
The presumed illegal assets are frozen once the act is implemented, and any sort of liquidation of said assets by the KMT or its affiliate organizations could be fined by double or triple the amount of the sum of the liquidated asset, according to the act.
The committee led by Koo is to have 11 to 13 members. The determining of illegal party assets that should be returned to the state, local self-governed groups or original owners requires a simple majority of the two-thirds of the attending members.
The committee is also required to set up its own Web site to make public its progress on investigations and report to the Legislative Yuan every six months.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland yesterday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy. The US delegation has begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), Xinhua News Agency said. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks was not made public. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim, but there is
The number of births in Taiwan fell to an all-time monthly low last month, while the population declined for the 16th consecutive month, Ministry of the Interior data released on Friday showed. The number of newborns totaled 8,684, which is 704 births fewer than in March and the lowest monthly figure on record, the ministry said. That is equivalent to roughly one baby born every five minutes and an annual crude birthrate of 4.52 per 1,000 people, the ministry added. Meanwhile, 17,205 deaths were recorded, resulting in a natural population decrease of 8,521, the data showed. More people are also leaving Taiwan, with net
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
RSS