The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday announced the improper sale of a state-owned property in Taipei by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that was previously overlooked due to a decades-old clerical error.
The Taipei Police Hostel on Nanyang Street and the land it stands on were sold by the KMT during the Martial Law era, despite rightfully belonging to the public, the commission said in its latest report.
The KMT had confiscated the Japanese colonial-era building near Taipei Railway Station to use as its provincial party headquarters. It was one of 85 government buildings in the first batch of properties appropriated by the party after World War II.
In 1956, the headquarters moved with the provincial government to Jhongsing New Village (中興新村) in Nantou County and the KMT sold the Nanyang Street property in 1961, the committee said.
The building is currently being leased by Watson’s, little changed from its original appearance.
Committee Vice Chairman Sun Pin (孫斌) said in an interview that due to a clerical error, the hostel was not included in a previous NT$860 million (US$30.1 million) fine handed to the KMT for its misappropriation of state-owned property.
When added to the list of properties to be transferred to the KMT, the property was labeled as No. 3, while the actual parcel of land appropriated by the party was No. 3-3, he said.
Since No. 3 in subsequent records is listed as being owned by the Taipei City Government, the Control Yuan and other past investigators assumed it was never allocated to the KMT and had long since been returned to the state, unaware that the party held No. 3-3, he added.
The issue was discovered thanks to a committee investigator who came across a record of the sale while reading through related records, Sun said.
As the KMT had the means to sell the property, the committee figured there must have been some sort of error, he said, adding that investigators then combed through the histories of all surrounding properties before discovering the registration for No. 3-3.
The hostel actually spans both plots of land: No. 3 and No. 3-3, on which the KMT built additions before selling it, Sun said.
As entities wishing to rent space in the building must obtain permission from the city government, the incident constitutes a rare case in which a city government continued to collect rent even after a property was sold by the KMT, he added.
While the KMT might have at the time had the legal standing to use state-owned assets, the properties should have been returned to the state after the adoption of the Constitution in 1947, Sun said.
However, the party not only did not return them, but continued to use or sell the properties, even registering the land on which they sat, he added.
As there are bound to be more cases that have slipped through the cracks, Sun said that the committee would continue to investigate and pursue legal action.
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