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Elmer Feng says Lee involved in kickback deal

New Party lawmaker Elmer Feng (馮滬祥) yesterday petitioned the Control Yuan to investigate a kickback suspected to have been paid in connection with a contract for Mirage-2000 fighters. Feng also demanded an explanation from former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) who, a recent book claims, decided to go forward with the deal in 1992.

Feng said that Lee's decision to go through with the deal cost the government more than the contract was worth.

"According to our investigation, no invoices had been issued to overseas companies for the French Mirage series fighters since 1987," Feng said. "The manufacturer, Dasault Aviation, almost closed its production line in 1991. This was a clear sign that there was something wrong with the company. It might have been suffering from monetary problems or product defects. But the Lee administration still ordered 60 Mirage-2000 fighters and executed the deal."

In a book recently published by the leader of Taiwan's Indigenous Defense Fighter jet development project, retired general Hua Hsi-chun (華錫鈞) said that a committee established to assess the Mirage fighter deal -- comprised of former minister of defense Chen Li-an (陳履安), former chief of the general-staff Liu Ho-chien (劉和謙) and Hua -- was dismissed on Aug. 4, 1992, because Lee had already made the final decision to purchase the Mirage-2000 fighters.

"A Mirage-2000 is twice as expensive as an F-16," Feng said. "Obviously, it was a bad decision by Lee which cost the government more money [than necessary]. The products were not as good as we had expected. I think Lee should explain whether there was any personal interest or favoritism involved."

F-16s, IDFs and Mirage-2000s are referred to as second-generation fighters to differentiate them from older fighter jets such as F-5Es and F-104s. The first fleet of Mirage-2000s was commissioned on May 10 at the air force's Hsinchu base.

Feng also quoted an Oct. 30 story from the French newspaper Le Monde.

According to the story, French investigators suspect, after freezing his Swiss bank accounts, that Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), former Taiwan agent of French frigate maker Thomson CSF, now called Thales, and fighter maker Dasault Aviation, earned NT$11.4 billion in kickbacks connected with the Mirage deal.

"Lee is the former president who decided to do this deal," Feng said. "He must have known what was going on."

Feng's petition was accepted by Control Yuan member Ma Yi-kung (馬以工). Ma said that the Control Yuan would organize a committee to investigate the Mirage-2000 deal just as it had done in the case of the Lafayette frigate scandal.
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