Mon, Aug 12, 2024 page3

• Ko’s KP Show pure commercial activity, TPP says

  ALLEGED OPAQUE DEALINGS: Although TPP chairman Ko Wen-je last year said the event was for ‘fundraising,’ a party official in a message said it was commercial

  • By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
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  The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday said the “KP Show” concert it held on July 29 last year was a commercial activity, following a political pundit’s questioning why earnings from the “fundraising” concert was not declared in the party’s political donation disclosure.

  Citing the Control Yuan’s open data on political donations, political pundits and a city councilor last week questioned the TPP and its Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who was also the party’s presidential candidate in the Jan. 13 election, about allegations of inaccurate disclosure of political donations.

  Political pundit Kang Jen-chun (康仁俊) on Saturday afternoon in a post on Threads said that Ko last year said he needed money to run for president and he would organize a fundraising event.

  

  Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je, center, rehearses in an undated photograph for the “KP Show” event the party held on July 29 last year.

  Photo courtesy of the Taiwan People’s Party

  The KP Show was organized by the marketing company Muko (木可行銷公關), and commissioned to Neo Creative Marketing Production Co (尼奧創意行銷) for execution, which received NT$3,140,802 (US$96,819) for planning and holding the concert, he said.

  Internet personality Liu Yu (劉宇), also known as Si Cha-mao (四叉貓), and political pundit Grace Woo (吳靜怡) last week questioned Muko’s allegedly opaque financial dealings with Ko’s campaign office.

  They reported a woman surnamed Lee (李) from Muko was in charge. She is also the finance officer of Ko’s election campaign office, and her brother is Ko’s senior-high school classmate and former Taipei Rapid Transit Co chairman Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗), recruited by Ko when he was Taipei mayor.

  The KP Show concert sold tickets for NT$8,800 for adults, NT$4,200 for people with disabilities, and online tickets for NT$500, and collected NT$5,310,400 from ticket sales, Liu wrote in his thread post.

  Deducting the execution fee and other promotional fees, Muko made a net profit of NT$770,196, he said.

  When reporters asked him why the tickets were so expensive last year, Ko replied that the concert was for “fundraising,” so he should explain where the NT$770,196 income had gone, Liu said.

  TPP spokesperson Wu Yi-hsuan (吳怡萱) in a prerecorded video said that the concert was not for fundraising, but a pure commercial activity, which Ko’s campaign office had clarified before the election.

  She said the concert was organized by Muko, which paid the expenses and collected the revenues, which was all done according to contract.

  Meanwhile, the TPP on Saturday apologized for three records of political donation expenditure — one to OCT Entertainment Co (時樂) and two to Neo Creative — as it said that they were mistakes in accounting.

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平) yesterday said he was approached by OCT Entertainment, which said that it did not receive the receipt of about NT$9 million expenditure from Ko’s campaign office and suspected the office of using fake receipts.

  Chung said he would head to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today to file a complaint against Ko for alleged violation of the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法), breach of trust and causing a civil servant to make a false entry in public records.

  Additional reporting by CNA
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