Amid allegations of political contributions made to several diplomatic allies, the Legislature's Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday voted to put foreign aid earmarked for the nation's Latin America allies on hold during a budgetary review session.
The decision was made during a closed-door review of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MOFA) confidential budgetary allocations. The review was in response to allegations that former Costa Rican president Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos had received funds from Taiwan.
Rodriguez was arrested last Friday, accused of accepting US$400,000 from the ministry and another US$1 million from a company said to be linked with the former president, while Bolanos faces impeachment on corruption charges linked to his 2001 campaign finances. Taiwan allegedly contributed US$4.9 million to Bolanos' campaign.
"The ministry needs to be on top of developments abroad and be able to respond immediately to these developments. There needs to be a damage control mechanism," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Bill Sun (孫國華) said, adding that the ministry's responses had been delayed and that an explanation for allegations regarding donations made in the name of the "Friendship Company" to Rodriguez had yet to be made.
The Central News Agency reported yesterday that Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) told legislators during the budgetary review session that the ministry implemented its budget in accordance with the law and was perfectly willing to submit to the legislature's oversight. As such, Chen said, if no irregularities existed, slashing the ministry's budget for Latin American aid would only be an admission of wrongdoing.
The committee's decision yesterday was more a gesture indicating the opposition party's disapproval of the ministry's handling of aid scandals than it was a budgetary freeze.
The budget is slated to be looked at again today by the committee and will most likely be reviewed further at an inter-party negotiation session and by the entire legislature in coming months.
MOFA's explanation
Meanwhile, the Embassy of the Republic of Costa Rica in Taiwan yesterday made available portions of the note the ministry had sent Costa Rican chancellor Roberto Tovar regarding Taiwan's purpose in sending funds amounting to US$400,000 to Costa Rica.
According to the Costa Rican embassy's statement, the ministry said the funds had been given after a request was issued by the Costa Rican Foundation for Liberty and Human Development on Nov. 6, 2000 for US$1,200,000 in aid.
MOFA had given the foundation a total of US$400,000, in two installments of US$200,000 in 2001 and 2002.
With regard to the Friendship Company, believed to be linked with the Taiwanese government, the embassy's statement cited the ministry's note as saying that "since in Taiwan all financial institutions are open not only to Taiwanese enterprises and citizens, but also to foreign enterprises and citizens, apart from providing a varied array of financial services, my government [Taiwan] does not have any knowledge whatsoever about the mentioned transaction."
The Friendship Company is implicated as having remitted US$1 million to Denisse, a company believed to be run by Rodriguez.
However, Rodriguez' lawyer said that the former president had received NT$400,000 dollars from the government of Taiwan as a personal loan.
Taiwanese banks arranged to loan Rodriguez the money through the government in Taipei, Rafael Gairod said.
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