Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) yesterday accused former Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) chairman Lee Ruey-tsang (李瑞倉) of inducing Hua Nan Commercial Bank to lend scandal-embroiled Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co US$30 million in March.
Fai made the accusation at a news conference at the legislature.
Quoting a bank employee who requested anonymity, Fai said that Lee in March called Hua Nan Commercial Bank president Derek Chang (張雲鵬) in his capacity as FSC chairman and asked him to help Ching Fu secure a US$30 million unsecured loan from the bank.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The request was rejected by the bank’s credit review committee in April, Fai said.
As the top financial regulatory official, “how could he have made such a phone call?” Fai asked.
Lee, Chang and Ching Fu might have been working in collusion, as Lee had served as an acting president at the Bank of Kaohsiung and Chang was appointed the bank’s director in June and, later that month, its president.
The FSC on Wednesday said that the Bank of Kaohsiung might have committed a technical error when it granted Ching Fu a loan of NT$1.75 billion (US$58.22 million at the current exchange rate) for a NT$35.8 billion government project to build minesweepers, after the shipbuilder agreed to use an escrow agreement.
Chang might have attempted to finance his “friends” at Ching Fu after learning that the Bank of Kaohsiung lent Ching Fu NT$1.75 billion, Fai said.
KMT Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) said that none of the 10 FSC chairmen before Lee, including himself, had influenced decisionmaking about loans at financial institutions.
He also accused President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of interfering with judicial investigations into the scandal, referring to a prerecorded speech, aired on Wednesday, in which Tsai accused former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration of “clear professional negligence” in the tendering process that awarded the minesweepers project to Ching Fu.
Tsai was trying to shirk her responsibility, Tseng said.
The punishments that the Ministry of National Defense on Wednesday handed to 24 navy officers, ranging from warnings to demerits, were too lenient, he said, calling on Minister of National Defense Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) to step down.
KMT Legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁) said that the official who helped Ching Fu secure land in Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor, as former Kaohsiung Marine Bureau director-general Wang Tuan-jen (王端仁) alleged in an audio recording leaked last week, was Minister Without Portfolio Wu Hong-mo (吳宏謀).
Ching Fu acquired land in the harbor to build a shipyard for the minesweeper project.
The audio file was recorded in October last year, when Wu served as Public Construction Commission chairman, Hsu said.
Hsu had received word that Wu would soon be reassigned from his current post, he said, urging Wu to explain the reassignment.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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