The first reading of four bills aimed at dealing with the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten party assets passed yesterday, with the party asking for a joint committee deliberation of the bills.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus motioned for a change of the legislative agenda, moving up the four bills concerning the party assets that was blocked by the KMT on Friday last week to the top of the agenda. It passed on the first reading.
The KMT caucus did not obstruct proceedings, but asked for a review of the bills by a joint committee that would consist of the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, the Internal Administration Committee and the Finance Committee.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
It is likely that the review would take place shortly, while the DPP caucus yesterday held a news conference calling on the KMT not to rush the sale of its party assets prior to the legislation.
The DPP caucus said that the combined value of seven Taipei properties put up for auction comes to NT$9.84 billion (US$294 million), which includes the New CB Party KTV building in Ximen District (NT$3.74 billion), the Taipei Tower C1 land lot (NT$2.5 billion) and a construction on Changchun Road (NT$2.21 billion).
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said the KMT has placed advertisements in newspapers looking for buyers for its party assets.
DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) said the KMT is trying to get these buildings sold before the presidential transition and warned the party against selling the assets before a bill governing them is passed.
DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) also advised potential buyers against purchasing “controversial party assets,” which could result in getting nothing in exchange of their money.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said the DPP was “manipulating a pseudo-issue” by accusing the KMT of rushing the sale of questionable assets.
“The DPP government, during its eight-year rule, made a list and cleared all of the KMT’s disputed party assets. A total of 267 plots and buildings, amounting to NT$4.8 billion, had been either forfeited and reregistered as owned by the Republic of China or returned to local governments as gifts,” Lin said in a statement, adding that 51 of them were picked out as controversial by the KMT.
“Regarding the legal assets, the first priority is to use them to pay off the debt of Central Investment Co; giving them away to the central and the local governments or lending them to nonprofit organizations are also the available options,” Lin said, adding that the KMT has recently donated seven housing properties to local governments.
The assets owned by the party are all legal assets and have all been entrusted to the party, Lin said, questioning DPP president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) sincerity about her talk of conciliation while turning a blind eye to her party lawmakers’ “raid-like attacks on other political parties.”
Meanwhile, former KMT spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) called on the KMT to donate its assets as compensation to the victims of the KMT’s authoritarian rule and for recording the history of human rights violations during the White Terror era.
“The KMT could continue what it is going through now, which is procrastinating and resisting [the relinquishing of the assets] and polarizing the society and distorting ‘transitional justice’ into ‘transitional hatred,’” Yang said. “This approach is an easy way, but it would lead to the KMT’s total ruin.”
“Or the KMT could choose ‘short-term pain’ by clearing it off its historical burden and being reborn as a new KMT,” Yang said.
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