Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) elected officials and party functionaries have met less than 9 percent of their assigned fundraising targets, which might result in the party failing to pay its workers in the coming months, sources said.
KMT officials and functionaries were supposed to raise NT$260 million (US$8.6 million) for the 2017 fiscal year, but raised only NT$23 million, they said.
In October last year, the KMT Central Standing Committee set fundraising quotas for officials and functionaries out of concern that the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee might cripple the party’s finances.
The KMT headquarters reportedly included a provision to punish those who fail to fulfil their quota by suspending their membership, but it was dropped after meeting resistance from Central Standing Committee members, sources said.
The failure to meet even 9 percent of fundraising quotas caused discontent among party workers, the sources said.
“The names of KMT politicians who failed to do their part in the fundraising effort should be published after the deadline,” an unnamed party worker said.
KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) — who led fundraisers abroad and collected NT$10 million — was the only KMT politician to meet her target as of Saturday, sources said.
The party’s vice chairmen were supposed to raise NT$10 million in total, but the amount they raised was “insignificant,” sources said.
The KMT vice chairmen charged with raising funds were Lin Jung-tzer (林政則), Jason Hu (胡志強), Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and Chen Chen-hsiang (陳鎮湘), as well as former vice chairman Steve Chan (詹啟賢), who resigned in January.
The 32 members of the Central Standing Committee have mostly ignored their responsibility to raise NT$1 million each, with the exception of Ke Chen-chu (柯貞竹) and Shen Ching-kuan (沈慶光), who exceeded their quotas, sources said.
“The rest of the members treated the committee’s resolution as if it did not exist,” the sources said.
Only about a dozen people from the 210-member Central Committee and 30 people form the about 750-member Central Evaluation Committee met their quotas, sources said.
However, the members of the two committees had lower quotas to fill — NT$100,000 and NT$50,000 respectively — they added.
The mayor of a special municipality needed to meet a NT$2 million quota and a county commissioner a NT$1 million quota, the sources said.
However, of the six KMT mayors and commissioners, only Miaoli Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) met his quota and exceeded it, while the rest failed to raise any money, the sources said.
The KMT’s 35 lawmakers were supposed to raise NT$500,000 each for district legislators and NT$300,000 each for legislators-at-large, but they failed to meet their quotas and only about a dozen raised any money, they said.
Speakers of special municipality councils or county councils were assigned a quota of NT$1 million and NT$500,000 respectively, but none of them met their quotas and only a minority raised any money, the sources said.
After trimming down party organizations in January, the KMT party headquarters needs NT$30 million per month to pay for party affairs and miscellaneous expenditures, as well as operational needs, they said.
In addition to failing to meet its fundraising targets, the KMT headquarters also lost NT$50 million in revenue because party membership fees were routed to local chapters following the amendments to party regulations last year, the sources said.
Of the KMT’s remaining sources of income, the proceeds from merchandise sales are too small to be relevant and the subsidy of NT$16.4 million for political parties is about to run out, the sources said, adding that after paying next month’s wages, the party might not have enough money to pay its workers.
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