The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday rejected the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) third proposal to pay a fine of NT$864.88 million (US$28.77 million) — this time with dividends and creditor claims.
The committee on June 15 ordered the KMT to pay for 458 properties it took from the then-Taiwan Governor-General’s Office after the Japanese colonial era, all of which have been sold.
After the Administrative Enforcement Agency last month rejected the KMT’s offer to pay with US dollar-denominated bonds issued in 1947 or shares issued by two KMT-owned holding companies, the party yesterday offered to pay in dividends and creditor claims.
Photo: CNA
Party officials at a news conference yesterday criticized the agency and proposed another payment method following the agency’s announcement that it plans to confiscate a KMT office building in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), 11 party dormitories in Taipei and KMT properties in Kinmen County.
The party told the agency that it would pay NT$839.66 million of cash dividends issued by Central Investment Co (中央投資公司), a KMT-owned holding company, while the remainder would be paid with creditor claims against the Chang Yung-fa Foundation, which acquired the former KMT headquarters in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正).
The proposal shows that the party has the ability and intention to pay, KMT Administration and Management Committee deputy director Lee Fu-hsuan (李福軒) told the news conference, adding that the agency could not reject payment proposals without reasonable grounds and that the confiscation could disrupt the operations of the party’s Taipei offices.
“The agency’s rejection of the KMT’s two previous payment proposals has made it subordinate to the committee and a hatchet man for a dictator,” Lee said. “The committee’s aim is to disrupt the KMT’s operations to secure easy electoral wins for the Democratic Progressive Party.”
The party would file a suit for compensation for any damages caused by the agency, he added.
Meanwhile, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) rejected the KMT’s payment proposal.
The committee ordered the KMT to transfer its shares of Central Investment Co and its spinoff, Hsinyutai Co (欣裕台), to the state after the committee determined that the two companies were founded with ill-gotten party assets, Shih said.
Therefore, the shares and dividends cannot be used for payment, she said.
The US dollar-denominated bonds, issued by the KMT government in 1947 before it fled to Taiwan from China, cannot be used for payment either, she said.
According to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), all government debt — including bonds and deposits received by state-run financial institutions — accrued before the KMT regime fled to Taiwan in 1949 is not to be repaid until the nation is unified, meaning that the bonds the KMT referred to cannot be cashed.
The KMT has land worth more than NT$2 billion and the agency can immediately confiscate Taipei properties estimated at NT$350 million, she said.
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