The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday ordered a freeze on a NT$100 million (US$3.13 million) payment from the Chang Yung-fa Foundation to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), saying the “life-saving funds” for the financially troubled party were an illegal asset.
Following the committee’s freezing of KMT accounts in September, the party terminated a contract with the foundation to rent a unit at the foundation’s headquarters in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正), which were formerly the headquarters of the KMT, planning to use a NT$100 million tenancy deposit to pay party employees’ salaries and pensions.
However, the committee deemed that the funds were an unpaid installment owed to the KMT by the foundation, which purchased the facilities from the party, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The committee ordered the foundation to deposit the funds with a court.
Separately, the committee uncovered unusual cash flow between the KMT and the Mingsheng Foundation, a party-affiliated organization chaired by KMT Administration Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展), Shih said.
After the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee on Nov. 1 identified two holding companies — Central Investment Co (中央投資公司) and its spinoff, Hsinyutai Co (欣裕台股份有限公司) — as being affiliated with the KMT, a party employee surnamed Lee (李) withdrew NT$94 million from two Mingsheng Foundation bank accounts on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, Shih said.
Hsinyutai last year donated NT$90 million to the Mingsheng Foundation, whose five-person board of directors has been dominated by KMT officials, she said.
“The timing of the cash withdrawals [from the Mingsheng Foundation’s accounts] is reminiscent of that of the issuance of 10 checks [totaling NT$520 million and deposited by the KMT on Aug. 11] after the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) went into effect [on Aug. 10],” she said.
The KMT has not replied to inquiries on the whereabouts of the NT$94 million, Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is to hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday to decide whether the KMT must transfer ownership of Central Investment and Hsinyutai to the government, and whether it would be allowed to access frozen accounts to pay taxes and party employees’ salaries, he said.
However, a planned hearing on Dec. 16 on 319 properties owned by the KMT is to be postponed, as the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee has encountered difficulties in acquiring and verifying transcation data, Koo said.
The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee has discovered that some properties were transfered between the party and Central Investment and its affiliates, but the reasons behind the transfers have yet to be understood, he added.
A preparatory hearing is to be held on Dec. 16 to examine property sales by the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) and Central Pictures Corp, which were previously owned by the KMT, Koo said.
BCC took over property in Taipei’s Daan District (大安), formerly owned by a Japanese radio association during the Japanese colonial period, and later sold the plot and used the proceeds to acquire two buildings in Taipei, Koo said, adding that the firm also allegedly acquired property in Chiayi County’s Mingsyong Township (民雄) using government money.
“The cases are of landmark importance, because they might fit the definition of ill-gotten party assets,” he said.
Central Pictures took over 11 theaters from the Japanese and later sold eight of them, Koo said, adding that the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is to review the transaction history of those theaters to gain an understanding of how the then-KMT-owned business disposed of properties acquired from the Japanese colonial regime.
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