Minister denies role in scandal

The Taiwan High Court Prosecu-tors' Office confirmed yesterday that it had questioned Minister without Portfolio Chang Yu-hui (張有惠) last Friday regarding his alleged involvement in the snowballing Jin-Wen Group (景文集團) scandal.

Chang released a statement yesterday evening denying any involvement in the scandal.

He denied that he had approved the unlawful NT$640 million loan to the Yu Chuan (昱筌) construction firm owned by the Jin-Wen Group during his term as the chairman of the state-run Central Trust of China (中央信託局).

Chang also denied the accusation that his son had been given a villa in the Ta Hsueh Shih Hsiang (大學詩鄉) community as a bribe from the Jin-Wen Group.

Chinese-language media reported yesterday that Jin-Wen had been paying for the villa for Chang's son, Chang Chieh-kai (張介鍇), on a monthly basis for nearly a year until a financial crisis hit the group last July.

The villa was sold by Lin Tsung-sung (林宗嵩), former principal of the Jin-Wen Institute of Technology (景文技術學院) and son-in-law of the Jin-Wen Group's chairman, Chang Wan-li (張萬利), it was reported. The press said that Chang Chieh-kai's brother-in-law paid NT$4.5 million for him for the purchase, while Jin-Wen took care of the remaining debt of some NT$13 million.

A former assistant manager and incumbent branch manager of the Central Trust of China, Chang Cheng-hung (張正宏), has been detained on a court ruling since Thursday in connection with the illegal loan case. The Jin-Wen Group was granted the loan with a construction site as collateral, though the actual value of the construction site was too low for the NT$640 million loan.

Chang Yu-hui remains free after last Friday's interview. Prosecutors said they do not rule out questioning Chang again.

The construction of the Ta Hsueh Shih Hsiang villa community in Hsintien City, Taipei County, also figures in the scandal. Prosecutors found that the Jin-Wen Group built the houses on land that was supposed to have been used for the expansion of the Jin-Wen Institute's campus.

Reports said in the mid-1980s, the Jin-Wen Group applied to use a 22-hectare plot near the school for a campus expansion, but it later used 12 hectares of the land to build the homes.

Prosecutors are investigating whether several government departments, including the Ministry of Education, Taiwan Provincial Government and the Taipei County Government, collaborated with Jin-Wen and unlawfully allowed the construction of the villas.

The fact that the villas are home to many high-ranking education officials has also raised media speculation as to whether they have any connection with the Jin-Wen Group and Chang Wan-li.