The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Taipei City Government for failing to avoid a conflict of interest during then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) time in office that might have resulted in profiteering by a development firm in the Zhongxing Shanzhuang (中興山莊) urban renewal project.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seized a plot belonging to a landowner surnamed Yeh (葉) that was later used as the site for the Sun Yat-sen Institution on Policy Research and Development, whose premises partly overlap with the urban renewal project, Control Yuan members Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) and Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) told a news conference.
The KMT “rented” the plot to the KMT Central Committee, which paid rent only briefly, essentially occupying it, Kao said, adding that Yeh had to continue to pay land taxes.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Yeh later offered to sell the plot for NT$200 per ping (3.3m2), but accepted the KMT’s counteroffer of NT$105 per ping, he said.
According to witnesses, four men, including one with a pistol holstered at his waist, visited Yeh’s home during negotiations, Kao said, adding that Yeh was the disadvantaged party throughout the process, unlike ordinary property rental or sale cases.
“Land marked for government use cannot be used by private entities, but the KMT has since 1969 used the plot of land to run the institute training its cadres while avoiding land taxes,” Kao said.
As the KMT had promised the city government that 5,800 ping of land from the plot would be donated for the relocation of Taipei Municipal Yongjian Elementary School, the land was marked for government use, he said.
However, the city government later rezoned the land for residential use, allowing the KMT to sell it to the Yuanlih Group, which profited from the removal of technicalities that had previously precluded it from participating in an urban renewal project, he added.
Ma, who at the time was also KMT vice chairman and should have avoided a conflict of interest, approved the rezoning, Kao said.
The city’s urban planning committee passed a resolution allowing Yuanlih to acquire part of the plot at a discounted price, which was at odds with the section of the Constitution on protecting people’s property and constituted profiteering on behalf of a political party and a corporation, he said.
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