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President asks Su Tseng-chang to conduct inquiry

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Wednesday telephoned Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) from Nicaragua, asking him to conduct a full-scale inquiry into the Rebar Group saga and to find out which government officials should be held responsible.

Chen said that "there must be something wrong," and said that Su had to do something to fix the problem in addition to asking the legislature to make greater efforts.

"We don't know how serious the problem is or the extent of government involvement, but I believe Premier Su is a wise leader and knows how to deal with the problem," Chen said.

Chen made the remarks in response to media inquiries about the matter during a late-night press conference held at his hotel.

Su yesterday held an emergency news conference at which he urged the legislature to agree to amend a law to allow public financial institutions with unreasonable bad loans to release names of major bad debt holders.

The premier's call came after Chen demanded on Tuesday that he tackle the matter, which has caused a bank run and a decline in investor confidence.

Chen said that he was baffled by the regulation banning the publication of information from financial institutions with extravagant bad loans.

Although he had received a preliminary written report on the case from Su, he has not yet seen a thorough report describing who should be held responsible, the president added.

Chen revealed he had a telephone conversation with Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on Wednesday morning and Lu briefed him on the latest developments in the case.

Two subsidiaries of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團) filed for insolvency protection last week, triggering a bank run on The Chinese Bank (中華銀行), another member of the group.

The bank was taken over by the government through the Central Deposit Insurance Corp last Friday, generating some criticism over the alleged misuse of public funds.

Rebar Group chairman Wang You-theng (王又曾), who fled to China the day after the two Rebar Group companies applied for insolvency, was accused of stealing NT$800 million (US$24.4 million) from The Chinese Bank.
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