TAITRA vows to return donations to employees

The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) yesterday promised to return all political donations collected from its employees and to stop calling on them to donate money to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a TAITRA official said.

TAITRA secretary-general Chao Yung-chuan (趙永全) said that council chairman Hsu Chih-jen (許志仁) had started the donation campaign on Jan. 11, asking employees wishing to make such a donation to register with the council.

The council announced on Jan. 14 that registration was not compulsory, but Chao said that the statement might not have been driven home to employees.

The council apologizes for any distress it had caused employees or the public, and would return all donations, Chao said.

The announcement came after the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that the trade promotion body had asked department heads in a confidential message to solicit donations from employees. Although the donation recipient was not identified, the confidential document said the donations would be tax deductible under the Political Donation Law (政治獻金法).

Hsu, currently visiting Latin America on a procurement mission, issued a statement in which he acknowledged that he "asked colleagues to make donations on a voluntary basis," but insisted that they "were not forced" to do anything.

He said the donations would be sent to the headquarters of the DPP on Jan. 28, with all donors getting receipts.

Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) said that if TAITRA employees wanted to donate money to the DPP, they could do so on their own through other channels.

It was "inappropriate" for the council to raise funds from its employees, Chen said.

Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said yesterday that his initial understanding was that TAITRA had encouraged its employees to donate, but said the donations could serve "charity or education" as well as "political donation" purposes.

Hsu defended his actions by saying that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was sitting on a wealth of party assets and had no need for donations.

"But the DPP has no party assets, so it has to work hard to solicit donations and thus invites criticism," he said in the statement.

The report said that Hsu, who took over the helm of TAITRA in July 2003, had spearheaded the campaign to change the original name of the body, the China External Trade Development Council, the following year.