The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) last year declared NT$18.9 billion (US$618.54 million) in total assets and remains by far the nation’s richest political party, according to the Ministry of the Interior’s 2017 Political Parties’ Assets and Finances report released yesterday.
The annual report, which is mandated by the Political Party Act (政黨法), aims to make the finances of political parties more transparent, Deputy Minister of the Interior Lin Tzu-ling (林慈玲) said yesterday.
Of the parties that declared their finances, the Democratic Progressive Party was second-richest with NT$769 million in total assets, followed by the New Power Party — founded in January 2015 — with NT$25 million, the People First Party with NT$20 million and the New Party with NT$16 million, the report said.
Photo: Chien Jung-feng, Taipei Times
The Executive Yuan’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee in 2016 designated Central Investment Co (中央投資) and its spin-off, Hsinyutai Co (欣裕台), as affiliated organizations of the KMT and froze the two companies’ assets through an administrative order, which the KMT has contested in an ongoing lawsuit.
The two firms were considered the KMT’s most valuable assets in yesterday’s report.
As of last year, Central Investment Co was worth NT$15.4 billion and Hsinyutai NT$200 million, a combined NT$400 million increase from 2015, the report said.
The KMT’s real-estate assets were estimated to be worth NT$910 million, a decrease of NT$9 million from 2015, it added.
The party’s overall expenditures last year totaled NT$2.22 billion, including personnel costs, which comprised the lion’s share of the expenses at NT$1.81 billion, the report said.
The regulations requiring political parties to disclose their finances to the government were drafted in 2006, but they did not initially include punitive measures for noncompliance and their implementation was delayed until last year, because many political parties were small and did not have proper financial records, the ministry said.
All parties were required to declare their assets by May 31, Lin said, but added that as of last month, the ministry had been unable to establish contact with 95 parties, calling on those parties to contact the ministry to safeguard their rights.
The ministry earlier this year vowed to step up efforts to communicate with political parties about the regulations and expectations of conduct under the act, he said.
As of last month, 163 of 301 registered parties had filed declarations, with 95 reports in compliance with the act, Lin said, adding that all parties should submit their final paperwork to the ministry before Jan. 15 next year.
The act stipulates that noncompliance by parties, or a refusal to file a declaration after notification has been served could result in fines of between NT$1 million and NT$5 million, the ministry said.
Parties whose reports require corrections and are not fixed within a given timeframe, or whose corrections have failed to meet ministry standards could face fines of between NT$200,000 and NT$1 million, the ministry said, adding that fines are issued per individual breach.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS