One of the members of a legislative anti-corruption task force was accused yesterday of abusing funds donated by dozens of corporations to an environmental protection association he presided over.
DPP Legislator Chang Chin-fang (張清芳) said KMT lawmaker Wang Chung-yu (王鍾渝), who served as the president of Association of Industry for Environmental Protection ROC (中華民國企業環境保護協會), had used funds collected from the groups's member companies for uses other than those for which they were intended.
The association is made up of 63 large domestic corporations, including Chinese Petroleum Corp (
Wang is part of an anti-corruption group in the legislature made up of mainly "pan-blue" lawmakers and led by independent lawmaker Sisy Chen (陳文茜). Last Thursday and Friday it accused legislators from across party lines of having misappropriated funds donated by state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp and Taiwan Power Company (台電) given to compensate for the companies' environmental pollution.
Over the past several days, Chinese-language media have reported that Chinese Petroleum had given lawmakers NT$300 million and Taiwan Power Company NT$120 million -- funds that were earmarked for social and cultural events as part of the two companies' "good neighbor" program.
Chang, however, disagreed with the task force's accusations, saying that lawmakers who tried to get compensation for their voters could not be accused of "corruption."
The DPP lawmaker went further, claiming several lawmakers on the anti-corruption task force took advantage not only of state-run firms, but also other large domestic corporations.
He singled out Wang but declined to elaborate on the case.
"We will reveal more information on Thursday if the group fails to disclose its own members' corruption," Chang said.
Wang yesterday denied the allegations, saying that he served as the president of the association for only 24 days and had nothing to do with it before he took the post.
The KMT lawmaker said that the annual budget of the association was around NT$2 million, raised through membership fees, which was used to research ways of preventing industrial pollution.
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