Lawyers for three foundations connected to Hsinyutai Co yesterday denied allegations that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had used them to park illegal assets, as the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee held a hearing to determine the foundations’ legal status.
The KMT in 2015 funneled NT$90 million (US$3.09 million at the current exchange rate) via Hsinyutai to finance the creation of the Minchuan Foundation, Mintsu Foundation and National Development Fund, the assets committee said.
The committee later declared that Hsinyutai and its parent company, Central Investment Co, were KMT affiliates and that their assets should be nationalized.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Committee members yesterday said they believed the foundations played a role in redistributing assets that the KMT had illegally obtained during the authoritarian era to private hands.
The National Development Fund’s attorney, Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元), said that Hsinyutai had “donated” the money to the foundations in order to “remove the money from under KMT control.”
Yeh also disputed the committee’s allegation that the KMT directly controlled the operations of the foundations through their corporate leaders, a majority of whom held posts in the party organization of the KMT.
Although KMT Administration and Management Committee deputy director Lee Fu-hsuan (李福軒) serves as a board director at the three foundations, he is not beholden to the party because he receives no salary for the post, Yeh said.
He also accused the committee of conducting a procedurally unjust and illegitimate inquiry.
If the assets committee is an objective and bipartisan organization, it would have also investigated the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) New Frontier Foundation, he said.
“I am called to this hearing today for the sole purpose of putting up some song-and-dance routine for the government’s benefit,” he said.
“I feel sad every time there is a hearing,” KMT Party Disciplinary Committee director Wei Ping-cheng (魏平政) said, denying that the KMT’s Central Standing Committee or Disciplinary Committee has ever held any discussions about the foundations’ operations.
Assets committee member Lien Li-jen (連立堅) said there is no need to investigate the New Frontier Foundation, because its financial declaration is in order and it openly acknowledges that it is a party affiliate.
“The problem is not being a political party’s affiliate. The main issue, which the legal counsels seems confused about, is whether the foundations have in their possession assets that were illegally appropriated by a political party,” Lien said.
Former KMT chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) statement in an interview that KMT officials were to fill senior positions in the three foundations showed the degree of KMT involvement in their operations, he said.
There should be no question of Lee’s status as a party official carrying out KMT orders since he is a high-ranking official in the party, Lien added.
Members of the KMT Department of Youth Affairs yesterday staged an early morning protest and glued mock property seizure seals and slogans on the assets committee’s doors.
“Illegal seizure of our properties? We will close you down first,” one slogan said.
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