The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should make good on a promise made before the presidential election and candidly return party assets deemed improperly acquired during its 50-year reign, the Cabinet said yesterday.
"It's unethical to deliberately shrink the scope of the party assets that it has pledged to return to the state coffers and lie about the percentage that it has actually [returned]," Cabinet Spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said yesterday.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen also called on the KMT not to boycott a bill regarding the disposition of assets improperly obtained by political parties (政黨不當取得財產處理條例). The Cabinet sent the bill to the legislature in September 2002 but the draft has made little progress despite over 25 rounds of cross-party negotiations.
As the KMT is delaying making good on its promises, Chen said, the government or the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus is considering adding an article to the bill to make the legislation retroactive.
KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) promised in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election that the party would adopt a three-stage approach to return party assets questioned by the DPP and deemed to have been inappropriately secured during its 50-year rule.
Under the KMT's three-stage plan, it would first put its cash assets in a trust, return real estate in the second stage and put its party-run enterprises into a trust during the third stage.
Since putting NT$300 million cash into a trust last year, Chen said the party has withdrawn NT$280 million from the account. Instead of returning the real estate to the state, Chen said that the party has disposed of most of the properties, worth more than NT$9 billion.
The party has also terminated a contract signed between the Central Investment Holding Co (
While the company has more than NT$24 billion entrusted under Credit Suisse First Boston, Hua Hsia Investment Holding Co (
Chen made the remarks in response to a claim made by the KMT yesterday morning that it has given back 80 to 90 percent of party assets it had promised to return to the state.
Chang Che-shen (
Chang also called on the Ministry of Finance to stop treating the KMT as a "culprit" and "compelling" it to add more items to a negotiation list the two had agreed to in March.
"The negotiation items we both agreed on during the March 15 meeting were the cinemas, two buildings [the Shih Chien Building and the Shih Chien Hall], real estate taken over from the Japanese government after World War II and five lots located in Taipei City, nothing else," Chang said.
The KMT will negotiate sincerely, Chang said, but further talks should be based on the consensus reached during the March 15 meeting.
The finance ministry has requested the KMT attend another meeting scheduled for tomorrow to further discuss the issue. The KMT, however, yesterday said that it would prefer to meet next Tuesday.
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