On Wednesday last week, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) legislative caucus held a news conference at which they asked whether Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Keelung mayoral candidate Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) was connected with a money laundering case involving Reliance Securities Co.
Hsieh responded to the accusation by saying that all three generations of the Hsieh family could stand up to scrutiny. He also said that only people who have no money resort to money laundering, while well-off people do not need to. How could anyone even think such a thing?
In August, the Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office investigated another KMT politician — Yilan County Commissioner Lin Zi-miao (林姿妙) — for allegedly using 26 dummy accounts to launder money, with unexplained cash flow of NT$78.44 million (US$2.46 million) over more than two years.
Starting from 1998, Lin, who inherited the connections of her late husband, former Taiwan provincial councilor Lin Ming-cheng (林明正), first stood for election to the Yilan County Council. Having been elected, she served as a county councilor for three terms in a row. She was then elected as mayor of Luodong Township (羅東), also winning a second term. She now occupies the senior post of Yilan County Commissioner with a monthly salary of NT$180,000. Is Lin the kind of person Hsieh would categorize as having no money?
Hsieh has done everything he can to dodge the issue raised by the DPP legislators. A sum of NT$1.13 million was allegedly laundered through his Golden Star International Co, and another NT$3 million was handed directly to him. If this payment was interest on a loan, why was it not transferred directly? Instead, it was paid separately in cash.
As well as failing to explain this, Hsieh keeps changing his story about the cash flow. First he said it was interest, then he said it was a loan. Nobody can tell whether it was either of those or something else.
How could a former legislator say something as condescending as “only people who have no money resort to money laundering?”
How can anyone so arrogant and legally illiterate stand for election to any official post?
Keelung’s potential was held back for more than a decade by its past KMT mayors and legislators. At the local level, former mayors Hsu Tsai-li (許財利) and Chang Tong-rong (張通榮) were corrupt, neglectful and abused their power. With them in charge, the city not only failed to develop, but even deteriorated.
At the central government level, Hsieh did not propose motions or bills, nor did he take part in budget reviews. According to Citizen Congress Watch, he had an attendance record of just 53 percent.
Keelung residents do not want a mayor who cannot draw a line between their personal and company accounts.
If he is elected, he would likely repeat the failings of his predecessors Hsu and Chang by treating the city’s treasury as his personal coffer. A lazy mayor he would be, he would probably “feel the common folk’s hardship by sleeping till midday.”
The sense of pride that Keelung folk have acquired over the past eight years would go up in smoke.
Hsueh Yi-wen
Keelung
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