The Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) has not been under the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) control since 2005, so it should not be deemed a KMT affiliate organization, BCC chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) yesterday told a hearing held by the Cabinet’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee.
Responding to media queries before the hearing, Jaw, who became BCC chairman in 2006, said that calling the BCC a “KMT affiliate” was “framing” him, as the sales of land made after he bought the company had been legal.
According to the committee’s investigation, Jaw, who bought the BCC from KMT-owned Hua Hsia Investment Holding Co — paying NT$1 billion (US$31.3 million at the current exchange rate) for the BCC’s broadcasting facilities, while its real estate, which had an overall value of NT$4.7 billion, was registered as a debt Jaw owed Hua Hsia.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The BCC was then merged with a conglomerate of media outlets owned by Jaw, the committee found.
With the exception of four disputed plots of land in Changhua, Chiayi and what is now New Taipei City, which together cost NT$1.86 billion and whose ownership is being reviewed by a court, Jaw sold all the land that originally belonged to Hua Hsia, the committee said.
Jaw has not repaid Hau Hsia the NT$2.84 billion he earned through land sales, as the BCC’s ownership is being reviewed by the committee and could potentially be transferred to the government, the committee said.
Jaw rejected the committee’s claim that the BCC could be a KMT affiliate because Hua Hsia can appoint people to the BCC’s board of directors and its supervisors.
Hua Hsia can nominate candidates to the two posts, but the BCC’s board retains the right to approve or veto the candidates, he said.
Hua Hsia’s right to appoint directors and supervisors is covered by a contract to prevent him from hollowing out Hua Hsia’s assets, Jaw told the hearing.
The National Communications Commission (NCC) during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration welcomed his bid to divide the BCC into a broadcasting company and an assets management firm and to manage 3 percent shares in the BCC owned by individual shareholders, but former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration rejected the move, Jaw said.
Saying Hua Hsia had transferred its 97 percent stake in the BCC to the KMT-owned Kuang Hua Investment Co, and that Kuang Hua could be seized by the government, Jaw urged Party Assets Settlement Committee chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to suggest to the NCC that he be allowed to divide the broadcasting company, so that the 97 percent stake could be transferred to the government.
Jaw said he has been embroiled in a lawsuit with Kuang Hua to settle the 97 percent stake because of the real-estate dispute.
“I would gladly cooperate. I would rather give it to my country [than to the KMT],” he said.
Jaw, who served as Environmental Protection Administration director in the early 1990s during the then-KMT administration, left the KMT to join the New Party in 1992.
After Jaw’s appearance, the Party Assets Settlement Committee discussed whether Central Motion Pictures Corp (CMPC) and its acquisition and sales of 14 movie theaters between 1956 and 1976 had been conducted using illegal assets.
The hearing was adjourned after KMT Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan’s (邱大展) and CMPC’s attorneys protested against the scope of discussion, saying the committee had only asked them to provide information on three movie theaters, but was trying to investigate 14.
Koo said that another hearing would be held after the Party Assets Settlement Committee narrows down the scope of discussion on the CMPC’s assets.
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