Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators called on the Executive Yuan to move toward provisionally seizing the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets yesterday -- and exposed a KMT ploy to launder money.
At a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, DPP legislators Chang Hsueh-shun (張學舜), Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) and Lan Mei-chin (藍美津) announced the findings of the DPP caucus' investigation into the KMT party ill-gotten assets.
In 2002, they said, the KMT-owned Central Investment Company received an suspicious loan of NT$1.9 billion from the Fuh Hua Financial Holdings Co. As collateral for the loan, the Central Investment Co used a tract of state-owned land that the KMT was using, which Chang called unbelievable.
"No normal bank would allow an organization to use state-owned land as collateral for a loan. The only reason why it worked is because the companies were owned by the KMT," Chang said.
He noted that the chairman of Kuang Hwa, Liu Tseng-hua (劉曾華), is also a controller at Fuh-hwa, and that its chairman is Chang Chang-pang (張昌邦), a KMT party stalwart.
He accused them of smoothing the way for the loan.
The rights to the same tract of land, Chang said, were recently sold to Kuang Hua for a 50-year period beginning last April.
"Innocent investors who have entrusted their money to Fuh-hwa have a right to know how the KMT is sucking the company dry," Yeh said.
The KMT use of state-owned land as collateral is a perfect example of why the government should take provisional measures against the party or provisionally seize its contested assets, the three legislators said.
No KMT officials were available yesterday to comment about the charges.
Earlier this week Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (林全) said the ministry had considered taking provisional action but decided against doing so.
The KMT has said that it would appeal a provisional seizure or any provisional measures.
Yeh and Lan urged the executive to take steps toward provisional measures or a provisional seizure of the KMT's assets to demonstrate to the people the KMT's lack of cooperation in the matter.
One difficulty in taking a pro-active move to seize the assets is that the government would have to put up a huge reclamation bond, pending further legal action.
The DPP legislators proposed that the money for such a bond come from the Executive Yuan's secondary reserve fund.
However, a request for more than NT$50 million from the emergency secondary reserve fund must first be approved by the legislature, according to Article 70 of the Budget Act (預算法).
It is unlikely that such a proposal would pass, given the pan-blue majority in the legislature. Nevertheless, the legislators urged the Cabinet to make the request anyway.
"Even if the doesn't get approved, it will show the people once again how shameless the KMT is," Yeh said.
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