A campaign advisor to independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday admitted that an additional NT$477 million in his sister-in-law's accounts -- exposed Monday by a KMT legislator -- was surplus cash left over after the provincial governor's election in 1994.
Richard Wu (吳思鍾), the general manager of Kingtel Corp and Soong's relative by marriage, widely considered Soong's main financial advisor, revealed that the KMT had, in fact, contributed NT$1 billion to the provincial governor campaign fund.
However, Wu admitted, "during the peak of our campaign, about NT$300 million was deposited into Chen Pi-yuan's (3笑捅3) account.''
He said that due to shortcomings in the way political parties operated at that time, Soong had indeed made mistakes in the way he handled the money. "No receipts were left by both the donors and beneficiaries,'' he said.
It was the way of doing things at the time, he said, pointing out that in a bid to give an extra boost to Soong's election chances, the KMT had actually offered NT$1 billion to Soong's then-general campaign manager, Lin Feng-cheng (林?正), now serving as Minister of Transport and Communications.
Lin denied yesterday that he had either personally had anything to do with the alleged NT$1 billion offer, or that he had even heard of it.
The latest disclosures add yet another twist to the tale that has been unfolding since the scandal broke on Dec. 10.
Wu explicitly stated yesterday that the money had nothing to do with the Weichien Foundation (維謙基金會), which had been named two days ago as being the intended beneficiary of some of the funds.
His latest explanation is also a contradiction of statements on Monday by Soong's spokesman Yen Rong-chang (顏榮昌). After learning of KMT legislator Yang Chi-hsiung's (楊|N雄) accusations on that day from the media, Yen still claimed the money had come through legitimate channels.
According to Yen, "some NT$100 million of the money was campaign funds left over from the provincial governor's elections. As for the other NT$300 million, it was originally donated by the Chihsing Farmland Irrigation Association (?C星1A?ETH>?籈Q會) for establishing a foundation focusing on water conservancy.''
Soong's office released a newsletter late Monday night, which simply denied Chen had ever opened an account at the Taiwan Bank involved in the unusual financial transaction.
But within two days, members of Soong's camp have reversed their stance at least three times over the amount of NT$477 million stashed in Soong's sister-in-law's account at the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp (???2憎?.
In the third wave of accusations against Soong's financial integrity on Monday, Yang had urged Soong to unearth the source of the NT$477 billion deposited in Chen's account.
But one Soong campaign official, who refused to be named, said one of the main considerations in the apparent reversals in their explanations was concern for current expense regulations for elections.
"After the (1994) election was over, Soong reported campaign expenditures of about NT$104 million to the Central Election Committee -- the upward limit on campaign spending. If we chose to tell the whole truth, it would likely violate related campaign regulations,'' the official said.
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