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Chen, Wu's assets placed in trust

The Presidential Office yesterday said the first family had met a campaign promise to put family assets into a blind trust, adding that first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍) would not trade on the stock market during President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) second term.

"The president and his family formally placed their private assets into a blind trust on Wednesday," Presidential Office spokesman James Huang (黃志芳) said. "The first family's chartered accountant will make a public report about the details at the appropriate time."

The president made the promise during a televised debate for presidential candidates on Feb. 14. He again made the pledge during a radio interview on Feb. 20, saying that his family, Wu in particular, would not make any stock transactions between then and the March 20 election.

He said that his family assets would then be put into a blind trust if he won the election.

"Although my wife's investments have been handled correctly and appropriately, as the first lady she is too big a target. Even if we stopped [trading shares], people would still call our conduct into question," Chen said.

The Control Yuan later yesterday confirmed Huang's statement, saying the president had authorized representatives to report on the matter.

Public servants and elected representatives must report their assets to the Control Yuan annually. However, no law requires them to put the assets into a blind trust.

During the presidential election campaign, the first lady had been accused by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party alliance of insider trading when purchasing shares last year.

In accordance with the Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Law (公職人員財產申報法), any public servant or elected representative should report active stock to the Control Yuan every two months if the total amount reaches NT$10 million.

Since January, documents filed with the Control Yuan showed that the first lady had failed to report on her extensive trading on five occasions. This meant that the first family was subject to fines between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 for each violation of the law.

The Presidential Office said that because of the carelessness of aides, the first family had failed to provide the reports as required but that they had settled outstanding legal matters by March 16.

However, the Control Yuan revealed to the media on Wednesday that Wu again failed to submit a record of stock transactions in January, which amounted to nearly NT$30 million.

Huang apologized again to the public yesterday, saying that as of Jan. 16, Wu had withdrawn from the stock market.

"The first family's chartered accountant admitted that it was his personal carelessness that led to the problem," he said.
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