DPP slams KMT for hoarding its ill-gotten assets

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday harshly criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for refusing to give up its ill-gotten assets, saying the party intended to sell the assets and use the proceeds to buy votes.

The KMT dismissed the charge as meaningless political theater.

According to a story yesterday in the Liberty Times, the Taipei Times' sister newspaper, in 1930 the Taiwan Provincial Government issued an official letter telling the Department of Public Property Management of the Land Bank of Taiwan to transfer 114 state estates to the KMT. The department later became today's Ministry of Finance's National Property Bureau.

Documented theft

In a news conference held at the Legislative Yuan, DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) displayed an old official paper from the National Property Bureau as an example of how the KMT government issued such orders to take over state and private property.

"This is how the KMT unscrupulously robbed properties from the people and the country. It should not have amassed such a fortune," Lai said. "So far, about 98.8 percent of the properties that the KMT stole from the country and the people are still in the party's pocket. But the KMT claims that it has returned those ill-gotten party assets. This is not only insincere, but also dishonest."

DPP caucus leader Wang Shu-hui (王淑慧) said that KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had cheated the public -- and especially KMT members who voted for Ma -- because he told them he would handle the KMT's party assets according to the highest moral standards, but has done nothing.

Same old song

In response to the DPP lawmakers' accusations, KMT spokeswoman Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文) yesterday said that the DPP was repeating an old tale, and that the KMT's party assets had nothing to do with significant issues facing the nation.

"These accusations are trite talk," Cheng said. "The KMT has taken care of these problems and given back those properties that were not sold to their original owners."

Cheng the DPP government and lawmakers for only thinking about elections and scoring political points, while paying scant attention to pressing issues such as unemployment, the economy, the Kaohsiung MRT construction scandal and cross-strait affairs.

"We don't see the government offer any effective policies. All we see is [DPP] officials spending all their energy campaigning," Cheng said. "This is the main cause of Taiwan going downhill."

Ongoing efforts

The Ministry of Finance yesterday said that the government will continue to track down the KMT's stolen assets in an effort to expose the truth and achieve social justice.

Vice finance minister Lee Ruey-tsang (李瑞倉) said that according to the ministry's five-member task force, which is led by finance minister Lin Chuan (林全), the KMT inappropriately obtained 144.5 hectares of land worth NT$21.96 billion (US$650 million), based on market values this year.

However, the KMT has only returned 1.29 percent of the land by area, or 5.76 percent in terms of market value.

Lee that the Liberty Times' report about the KMT's 114 illegally obtained houses is not a new development, as the properties were mentioned in a Control Yuan report.

However, the task force recently found that the KMT stole another 119 hectares of land in Tainan County.

Additional reporting by Jackie Lin