National Women’s League chairwoman Joanna Lei (雷倩) yesterday urged the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to unfreeze more of the league’s cash for charitable use, as she confirmed that the league had received the go-ahead to use its assets to pay overheads and expenses.
Lei made the remarks on the sidelines of an event in Taipei to mark the 121st birthday of late league founder Soong Mayling (宋美齡), the wife of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
Soong founded the league in 1950 and ran it for decades before passing the torch to former league chairwoman Cecilia Koo (辜嚴倬雲) in 2003.
The league’s NT$38.5 billion (US$1.32 billion) of assets had been frozen after it was declared by the committee to be a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) affiliate and was subjected to a renewed government-led probe on Feb. 1
“After countless rounds of negotiations with the committee, it eventually gave us permission yesterday [on Tuesday] to use the savings to pay the league’s overheads and personnel expenditure,” Lei said.
Lei said there are a number of charitable programs that also require funding, such as those that help military veterans, orphans and widows, and the league would continue negotiating with the committee.
She also dismissed allegations that the league was planning to transfer its assets, saying that all the possible organizations to which the league could transfer the assets are also being investigated by the committee.
The allegations about the transfer stemmed from the league’s application to have access to NT$3.9 billion of its assets to fund its daily operations and charitable programs.
Committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) yesterday denied that the committee had ever suspected the league of planning to transfer its assets, saying that it would need approval from the Ministry of the Interior to sell its real estate.
The amount of money the league had asked for was less than NT$3.9 billion, Shih added.
She said the committee on Tuesday agreed to let the league use NT$6.79 million of its assets to cover its personnel, overhead and legal expenses.
“It was the third time the committee granted the league’s request to use some of its assets,” Shih said, adding that the league had used NT$210,000 to purchase warm clothes for those in need and NT$80 million for disaster relief operations after an earthquake struck Hualien on Feb. 6.
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