Scholars doubt KMT asset trust proposal

Academics yesterday warned that the KMT's proposal to put its assets into trust would be a second chance for the party to launder the party's illegally acquired property. The KMT's presidential candidate Lien Chan (3s戰) raised the possibility of putting the party's assets in trust at a rally last week.

The scholars said the proposal is incapable of resolving the real problem of handling assets that were obtained illegally unless the exact origins of the assets are clarified.

Tsai Tzung-jen (1/22宗珍), an associate professor of law at Tamkang University, said that the KMT had gotten its first chance to "bleach" the assets in 1992, when the Civil Organizations Law was revised to allow political parties to register themselves as a corporation.

"Thereafter, the KMT obtained the legitimacy to control seven share holding companies and numerous assets," Tsai said.

Before that, the assets were registered under the names of individuals, since there was no legal basis for political parties to own assets.

"We must look into how the ownership of the assets was transferred to the KMT," Tsai said.

Since the trust system is designed to separate the ownership from management, the sources of the assets are left out of scrutiny.

Tsai said the problem of money politics must be resolved by "de-corporatizing" political parties to prohibit them from engaging in profit-making businesses.

"If the issue is not addressed, putting the assets into a trust will give the KMT a more solid excuse to increase the amount of its property," Tsai said.

Chang Ching-hsi (張2M溪), a professor of economics at National Taiwan University, pointed out that while much of the real estate now in KMT hands was handed over by the Japanese colonial government in the 1950's when it returned national assets to the new government, the KMT also took advantage of its political monopoly in the past to skim from government coffers.

Once transferring money from the national coffers became more difficult as the country opened up its practices to more public scrutiny, the KMT has over the past decade actively engaged in running businesses, several of which are monopolies, Chang said.

Chang said the assets should return to where they belong.

"It is meaningless to take others' property and put it into a trust," Chang said.

He said the involvement of gangsters in the political process and pervasive money politics can all be traced to the existence of KMT-run businesses.

Wang Wen-yu (?y?憰t), an associate professor of law at NTU, said even if the KMT actually puts its assets into a trust, it must spell out the purpose of the trust -- whether it is for "some specific public interests" or the pursuit of "the best investment interests."

Chien Yung-xiang (錢永2?/CHINESE>), an associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica's Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy, dismissed the proposal as a simple attempt by Lien to boost his campaign.