The Legislative Yuan has challenged the fairness of a Cabinet review of second-phase financial reform and the propriety of officials involved in the controversial reform continuing to hold important positions.
In particular, the review fails to address suspicions that the reforms were promoted in favor of business groups and that the government underpriced state assets, the legislature stated in a recently released report.
The second round of financial reforms was launched by the former Democratic Progressive Party administration in October 2004. One of its objectives was to halve the number of publicly owned banks to six by promoting mergers with private banks.
Because there were rife allegations of irregularities surrounding the reforms, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) formed a panel to review them in August last year, three months after his inauguration.
The outcome of the review was released last January.
The legislature, however, questioned the qualifications of some of the panel members, including then-vice premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄), Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) and central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南), saying that their appointments to the panel involved obvious conflicts of interest.
For example, both Chiu and Chen were serving in the financial sector during the financial reforms, while Perng already headed the central bank at that time and was one of the officials overseeing the reforms.
In addition, many officials who supervised the reforms were allowed to hold important positions in financial agencies, the legislature said. They include former FSC chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹), who is now chairman of the GRETAI Securities Market, and Ding Kung-hwa (丁克華), a former director-general of the FSC’s Securities and Futures Bureau, who is now chairman of the Securities and Futures Institute and a board members at both Financial Information Service Co and Taiwan Power Company.
Meanwhile, the legislature demanded that the FSC and the Ministry of Finance investigate the responsibilities of officials implicated in major financial scandals and work out solutions to the problems.
The legislature said that if the two agencies failed to do so, it would request that the Control Yuan and the Ministry of Audit look into the possibility that they have been derelict in their duties.
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