Saying that all of the party’s assets have been declared, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) yesterday challenged members of the public to uncover other items and claim a reward offered by the Ill-gotten Assets Settlement Committee if they do not believe they are all accounted for.
Chiu told the committee that the party’s assets were NT$430 million (US$14.23 million) in cash, 147 plots of land, 126 properties and 46 vehicles.
Stocks held by shareholders on KMT-controlled Central Investment Co and its spinoff, Hsinyutai Co have a combined market value of NT$15.2 billion, Chiu said.
Photo: CNA
The KMT located data regarding NT$328.2 billion worth of assets it owns in China, which was also declared yesterday, he said.
The party has registered unfunded actuarial accrued liabilities totaling NT$7.8 billion, which includes pension and interest payments, he said.
He mocked the assets settlement committee over its announcement in October last year stipulating that assets belonging to political parties and their affiliates that should be declared to the committee, including potted plants.
“We apologize for not knowing how to declare potted plants. The committee might as well determine them as ill-gotten assets and confiscate them,” Chiu said.
He cited “some technical difficulties” in declaring the assets, for example those the KMT might have left in China before it retreated to Taiwan following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1979.
The KMT had sold or transferred more than 1,000 assets since 1945, he said.
This issue, coupled with land that had been expropriated or rezoned, all add to the difficulty in tallying the KMT’s assets, he said.
“I doubt people would keep their trust deeds for more than 70 years,” he said. “We will consult land offices to retrieve as much information as we can.”
He encouraged the public to investigate potentially illegal or undeclared KMT assets, citing the maximum bonus of NT$100 million set by the assets committee to reward those who report them.
He urged pundits claiming that the party has hidden hundreds of billions of New Taiwan dollars in assets in China and the rest of the world to report any such items to the assets committee, adding that the Chinese Communist Party is also welcome to participate.
“You will not need to work for the rest of your lives if you uncover such assets and are paid the reward,” he said.
Chiu expressed dissatisfaction with hearings held by the assets committee to determine potentially illegal assets of the KMT, calling them “a waste of time.”
“It did not make any difference, no matter what we said,” he said.
Assets committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said that the hearings were part of its investigations.
“Director Chiu can choose not to attend, but the committee must not cancel the hearings,” Shih said.
The assets committee is to hold a hearing on Wednesday next week to hear testimonies regarding the KMT’s 2006 sale of Central Motion Picture Co.
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