The Cabinet’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is to designate Central Motion Picture Corp (CMPC, 中影) and Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC, 中廣) as affiliates of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by the end of the year, amid renewed public attention on the companies following the indictment of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) over his handling of the firms’ disposal.
The committee would request that the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office transfer records from its investigation into the CMPC and BCC sales after the documents are forwarded to the Taipei District Court, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said yesterday.
“I heard that there are 300 volumes, or 300 boxes, of evidence. We want to see if there is any evidence that we did not uncover in our investigation,” Shih said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Committee staff members are drafting disposition reports on the media companies, Shih said, adding that the reports would be sent to committee members for review upon completion.
“We should be able to designate them as KMT affiliates by the end of this year,” she added.
Ma was on Tuesday last week charged with breach of trust and contraventions of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法) for his role in the KMT’s disposal of several party assets in 2005 and 2006, including CMPC, BCC and China Television Co (中視).
The two people who managed the KMT’s finances used an elaborate financial scheme, which Ma approved, that enabled the party to sell the media companies and other assets at below market prices, which caused the KMT to lose NT$7.29 billion (US$238.89 million at the current exchange rate), the indictment said.
The more difficult part will be determining in what manner and proportion to return the companies’ assets to the government, as the properties have switched hands numerous times, Shih said.
Citing an example, Shih said CMPC took over 14 Japanese-owned theaters in 1953, most of which were either sold in the 1950s and 1960s or converted as part of the company’s joint construction projects with others.
CMPC later used proceeds from the theater sales to purchase the Chinese Culture and Movie Center in Taipei and a film facility in what is now New Taipei City, Shih said, adding that the movie production company still owns three theaters from the Japanese colonial period and several housing units in converted theater buildings.
The committee would seek advice from experts to accurately determine how much the companies should pay the government as compensation, Shih added.
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