Chunghwa Post’s reported loss of NT$62.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) from stock investments came under scrutiny at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday, when the company briefed lawmakers about its capital management.
Statistics from Chunghwa Post showed that the company’s capital management department had 197 stock options under its management as of last month, with total investment topping NT$146.1 billion.
The company’s accumulated losses through these investments totaled NT$55.9 billion.
The company had also put NT$28 billion into investments managed by private financial consulting firms. These investments saw an aggregate loss of approximately NT$6.6 billion.
Chunghwa Post said the losses were still only on paper, as the company had not sold its stock options and officially written off the losses.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Ken-te (陳根德) said that Chunghwa Post’s capital management department was required by law to report to its president any stock option that has dropped in value by more than 30 percent.
He questioned whether the company had continued to pump money into stocks that had been suspended from trading.
Chen also questioned whether the board of directors and trustees had done its job in supervising the operations of the company, given that the company had incurred such significant losses.
Democratic Progressive Party legislators Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) and Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) also questioned whether part of the Postal Savings Fund was allocated to help the government expand the scale of its National Development Fund to NT$100 billion.
Most of the Postal Savings Fund comes from the savings of the post office’s account holders. The government uses the National Development Fund for a variety of investments.
Yeh said the Postal Savings Fund was the money of private citizens and that she would ask people who have accounts with the company to withdraw their funds immediately if the government planned to used them inappropriately.
In response, Chunghwa Post chairman Wu Min-yu (吳民佑) said the Postal Savings Fund amounted to about NT$4.4 trillion and that if the government intended to borrow money from the fund, it would need to provide a 100 percent guarantee.
In related news, the company confirmed yesterday that it would help distribute government-issued consumer vouchers in February to qualifying citizens and residents who have not received theirs by the Lunar New Year.
Those who receive the vouchers in February will be required to pick them up at post offices in the same administrative districts as their residencies.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS