Chan Tsai-hung (
Soong earned a reputation for giving money away during his time as provincial governor, but what Soong gave away was not his own wealth, but taxpayers' money. He traveled around the nation to fulfill his presidential dream.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) was right to criticize Soong as "ungrateful and heartless" and "buying the presidency with the public's money" when the two were running against each other in the 2000 presidential election.
But the provincial coffers had no spare money and had to borrow from the Bank of Taiwan, which in turn had to borrow money from the Central Bank of China.
A deep-rooted habit is hard to change. Apart from using the huge funds that the outside world had donated to the KMT, Soong dug another big hole when he entered the provincial government after leaving his post as KMT secretary general on March 9, 1993. He did not return the money he had embezzled from the KMT, but, furthermore, used the money the provincial government had borrowed to build connections with his "vote captains" in his pursuit of the presidency.
This is a systemic flaw. Why was it that the provincial governor could single-handedly decide how much money would subsidize local governments? According to newspaper reports, Soong at times gave 10 times the requested amount, and in many cases double the amount. Was that much money really needed?
Didn't the budgets have to be evaluated in advance and verified by the auditing and accounting agencies? Why didn't investigators or the Control Yuan look into his illegal acts and dereliction of duty? Was a single government chief allowed to squander the public wealth? Didn't he have to be supervised by the provincial assembly or the Ministry of Finance? There must have been negligence, but why hasn't it become a legal case?
Regarding the Chung Hsing Bills Finance embezzlement scandal, which Soong has not been able to clarify, I put forth eight points in the Liberty Times on Dec. 8 and six points on Dec. 11 to prove that Soong is guilty. Neither Soong, his spokesperson or his lawyer have responded so far. It is all too clear that he embezzled public funds when he was serving as KMT secretary general. Based on this logic, he played the same old trick when he was the provincial governor. Was the money legally spent on his "vote captains"?
Although not all NT$870 billion Soong loaned from the Bank of Taiwan was given to his "vote captains," the real figure for building his personal connections should stand at NT$500 billion, according to Lien's criticism in the 2000 presidential election. This amount is sufficient for the central government to build another Ten Key Infrastructure Projects (
Could Soong's pocketing of the public funds stand the judicial test? Burdened with the NT$500 billion debt because of Soong's pursuit of his personal dream, shouldn't the Chen government and Taiwanese people investigate and clarify the matter?
Chuang Po-lin is a national policy adviser.
Translated by Jackie Lin
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