Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairperson candidate Lee Hsin (李新) yesterday pledged that, if elected, he would distribute all of the party’s cash assets to KMT members as part of a plan to “return the party’s controversial assets to zero.”
“KMT members have for many years paid membership fees to the party leadership and thus have contributed to the party’s assets,” Lee told a press conference outside KMT headquarters in Taipei yesterday morning.
However, Lee said the many draft bills proposed to deal with the KMT’s controversial assets fail to address the rights of KMT members, who have been treated unfairly for decades by “a company that refuses to share its profits with its employees.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
If elected chairman, Lee said he would thoroughly examine the party’s membership roll and assets, which include cash, real estate and stocks.
“With the exception of those reserved as salary and retirement funds for party staff, the KMT’s cash assets should be allocated directly, immediately and equally to the party’s 320,000 members,” Lee said.
Lee said that based on the assumption that the KMT has NT$10 billion (US$299 million) in cash, each party member would receive at least NT$30,000.
When party members are able to enjoy the treatment they rightfully deserve, they would naturally unite in support of the KMT, Lee said, adding that the interest the party earns from its cash assets each month exceeds the salary it pays to staff.
As for the KMT’s real-estate holdings, Lee said it should all be sold at base price before August next year and proceeds from the sale be used to pay off debts.
Lee also proposed allocating the KMT’s shares in Central Investment Holding Co and Hsinyutai Co to party members after the companies are merged.
The KMT placed Central Investment, the last KMT-owned company, into trust in June 2007, while Hsinyutai is a spin-off — established in 2010 — of the investment company.
“For the past two or three decades, the KMT often transferred party assets under the names of individuals or foundations to prevent them from being recovered or confiscated,” Lee said.
Since many documents have vanished or been destroyed due to personnel reshuffles in recent years, the KMT should offer cash rewards to mobilize people to investigate whether any of the party’s assets have been privately pocketed over the years, Lee said.
Lee posed several questions to his three rivals for the post, including whether and how they plan to reform the party’s assets, and who they think the assets actually belong to.
One of the candidates, former deputy legislative speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), said Lee’s plan’s feasibility should be considered.
“Everyone wants to see the KMT’s assets laid open. However, after eight years of investigation by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and former Control Yuan member Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄), all the problems [concerning the KMT assets] have been addressed,” Hung said.
Hung said she welcomes party comrades and members of society who have concerns about the KMT’s assets to look into the matter, while urging opponents to stop using the issue for political expediency.
In related news, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) said that many of the KMT’s assets could have been confiscated private properties.
At a question-and-answer session in the legislature, Tsai presented a copy of a petition written by his grandfather in 1949 asking the then-KMT regime to return a 30-hectare salt pan.
“The salt pan was seized by the Japanese colonial government during the Japanese occupation period. After the KMT regime retreated to Taiwan, it took over the property and refused to return it to its rightful owner,” Tsai said.
Tsai asked Premier Simon Chang (張善政) whether there might be other people like his grandfather, given the KMT regime’s party-state system.
“It is possible,” Chang said.
However, Chang said that it would require legal authorization for the government to be able to investigate the matter.
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