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Legislators demand probe into ex-civil service minister

Two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday urged the Control Yuan to investigate former civil service minister Chu Wu-hsien (朱武獻) after a media report alleged that his mismanagement had led to massive losses from the Civil Servants Pension Fund (退撫基金).

Chu became director of the committee in June 2004 and retired on May 19 this year.

KMT Legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) accused Chu of abusing his authority when he doubled as director of the fund management committee. Pan said it was never part of the committee director’s power to decide how to invest money from the fund.

She urged members of the Control Yuan to probe the allegations against Chu, adding that the legislature should also launch an investigation after the fall legislative session begins in September.

The Council of Grand Justices’ constitutional interpretation No. 585 in 2004 said that the Legislative Yuan enjoys investigative power, but required that the legislature amend laws to define the scope of its power.

However, the legislature has yet to complete the amendments.

KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) also said it was necessary to scrutinize Chu’s management to find out whether he had profited from the investment process.

The lawmakers’ criticism came after a story published in yesterday’s Chinese-language United Daily News quoted an anonymous official from the fund management committee as saying that Chu controlled the fund’s management instead of following precedent and allowing committee deputies with financial expertise to make investment decisions.

The story also quoted Examination Yuan member Tsai Bih-hwang (蔡壁煌) as saying that Chu spent most of his working hours managing the fund in an office in the Examination Yuan though he was not a fund management professional.

The story said an investment report earlier this year showed the committee had invested NT$66 billion (US$2.1 billion) from the fund in domestic and foreign stock markets as of last month.

The fund, however, suffered estimated losses of NT$7.2 billion on the domestic stock market and NT$600 million on foreign stock markets, the story said.

In response, Chu yesterday rebutted the accusation, saying that the fund had benefitted from stock market investments when he doubled as chairman of the management commission.

Chu said it was “unfair” to blame fund losses in the first half of the year on him.

“I had been away from the position for two months,” Chu said.

After Chu took over as chairman, the commission revised its regulations, handing management power to him.

Chu said the change was a decision made by the commission and not him.

Chu claimed last year’s realized gain was NT$21.08 billion, the highest since the fund was established in 1995 in terms of annual percentage yield, 5.617 percent.

“The realized gain for the fund amounted to more than NT$100 billion, while its unrealized gain was about NT$20 billion as of late April or early May,” Chu said.
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