Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday announced his picks for committee members, while confirming the appointment of Agency Against Corruption Deputy Director-General Hung Pai-ken (洪培根) as deputy chairman.
Koo said he knows that the Ministry of Justice’s Prosecutors’ Personnel Review Committee opposed the appointment of Hung — who is to quit his post to join the committee when it becomes active next month — but Koo asked that prosecutors show “forbearance and understanding.”
The post of assets committee secretary-general is to be filled by Chang Hung-tse (張弘澤), counselor of review and evaluations with the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, Koo said.
Koo said he has appointed Lo Cheng-chung (羅承宗), associate professor of financial and economic law at Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳), former commissioner of the Pingtung County Government Tax Bureau, as full-time committee members, while a third full-time member would be appointed later.
The committee’s eight part-time members are former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中); former Social Democratic Party legislative candidate Lee Yen-jong (李晏榕); Judicial Reform Foundation secretary-general Lin Che-wei (林哲瑋); National Chengchi University professor of history Li Fu-chung (李福鐘); accountant Jao Yueh-chin (饒月琴); and lawyers Wu Yu-hsueh (吳雨學), Yuan Hsiu-hui (袁秀慧) and Chang Shih-hsing (張世興), Koo said.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) gave him “a lot of latitude and trust” in the appointments, Koo said, quoting the premier as saying: “I have no objections whatsoever.”
“Achieving a balance between the political parties was difficult, because committee members cannot hold positions in a party or be an elected representative, while pan-blue camp politicians I spoke to said the requirements put them in a difficult position,” Koo said. “In the end, the appointments were based on professional credentials and competence.”
Koo said Lin Che-wei was selected because he was involved in government transparency groups, such as Watchout Co and online community G0V.tw, and is to assist in making committee operations more transparent and use information technology to better communicate with the public.
KMT Deputy Secretary-General Lin Te-fu (林德福) said he had “no comment” on the appointments.
He said that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers practiced “majority violence,” using floor votes to quash dissent.
He called the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten 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) “illegal and unconstitutional.”
KMT Legislator Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) said Koo is a “deep-green person” and the party asset settlement process will “predictably develop a complete pro-green bias.”
The appointees are “controversial people” who will make reconciliation between parties “utterly impossible,” Sufin said.
“Taiwanese society will become more fragmented and partisan because the committee is a source of chaos,” Sufin said.
DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said the KMT should “face the facts and deal with [its assets] as soon as possible, instead of continuing with its futile resistance.”
“If the KMT position is that the law is illegal or unconstitutional, it should specify what clauses are a breach of the law or the Constitution,” Lee Chun-yi said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS