As the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee continues its investigation of the National Women’s League’s (NWL) assets, sources suggest that since 2003, half of the league’s assets have disappeared.
On Jan. 31, the committee declared that the league was a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated organization, froze its assets and began investigating its financial records.
According to sources, in its early days, the league had more than NT$100 billion (US$3.41 billion at the current exchange rate) in assets; by the time league founder and former first lady Soong Mayling (蔣宋美齡) passed away in 2003, it still held NT$70 billion.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
However, the league now only has NT$38.5 billion, raising questions where the NT$30 billion went.
When asked about details of the league’s assets and how it handled donations to military veterans, league chairwoman Joanna Lei (雷倩) said it was only one of many organizations that received donations for veterans.
She said the league is still going over its financial records, but she does not recall seeing anything that shows it had NT$100 billion or NT$70 billion.
The committee is reviewing the league’s financial documents over the past decade and has scheduled meetings with league vice secretary-general Nancy Nee (汲宇荷), office of secretary director Jen Wang-ping (任王萍) and head of general affairs Chu Ai-na (朱愛娜).
Committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said the committee is meeting with league members individually to clarify if there were any missing documents, adding that it has so far talked to a former league secretary, chairwoman and a driver, among others.
The committee found that some of the league’s funds have gone to its affiliated foundations, as well as foundations formed by the family of the late Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), a former chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation.
According to a tip-off, despite the league’s claim that donations to military personnel — which the league was in charge of collecting — have been lost, it has financial records of every donation for veterans it has received.
According to the tip-off, the donations alone — not including interest — exceeded NT$100 billion.
According to a report by the Chinese-language media outlet Up Media, the league had donated a total of NT$1.92 billion to the Koo family foundations, KMT politicians and the league’s affiliated foundations — including the NWL Foundation for Social Welfare, the NWL Foundation for the Hearing Impaired, Hua Hsing Children’s Home and Hua Hsia Women’s Foundation.
The Koo family and the foundations it runs allegedly received 12 percent of the total, while donations to the league’s affiliated foundations accounted for 37 percent, and those given to KMT foundations and KMT politicians such as Chiu Yi (邱毅) and Alex Fai (費鴻泰) accounted for 32 percent, the report said.
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