Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) yesterday again refused to declare his assets, but said he would like to have his property audited on condition that independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) would do the same.
If Ko agrees to an audit, he would contact the Certified Public Accountants Association in Taipei to examine both his and Ko’s financial status and produce reports on their respective assets, Lien said.
Lien suggested that an audit should look at how he and Ko had used public funds during their stints as Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman and head of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Surgery respectively, the property declarations they both submitted to the Taipei City Election Commission, as well as any assets they would declare to the Control Yuan in the future.
Ko on Sept. 18 made public his tax records and statements pertaining to his personal bank account and two hospital bank accounts he had access to, partly in response to an allegation of corruption leveled by KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), who accused him of money laundering via that account when serving as head of the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit. Ko called on Lien to make a similar disclosure.
Lien has not agreed to do so. On Monday night, while Lien was having an online chat with netizens, he said that he did not see any reason why he had to do something he was not legally obliged to do.
In response to media queries yesterday about his willingness to declare his assets to the public, Lien said that there was no credibility in financial statements released without being certified by a registered accountant.
He then urged Ko to agree to his proposal for an audit.
Meanwhile, Lien yesterday displayed a notice of a shareholders’ meeting he said he had received from Golden Meditech Holdings Limited last week to rebut the claims of netizens that he had profited from selling his personal holdings in the company’s Taiwan depositary receipts (TDRs).
Lien had vowed earlier that he would drop out of the mayoral race if it is proven that he has profited from any transaction of the company’s TDRs.
He was accused of cheating investors because TDRs of the Chinese healthcare company, which he has strongly endorsed, fell to nearly one-third of their initial value after the company listed the TDRs on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Lien’s campaign office yesterday unveiled a list of 108 professionals who act as Lien’s consultants, led by former Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp chairman and CEO Ou Chin-der (歐晉德), and including former minister of the interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) and former deputy secretary-general of the presidential office Liu Pao-kui (劉寶貴).
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS