The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) failed to report or misdeclared 17 expenses from its latest presidential election campaign, totaling more than NT$18 million (US$553,931), TPP spokeswoman Vicky Chen (陳智菡) said today.
TPP leaders including Chen and Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) called a news conference this afternoon to explain flaws discovered in its reporting of three payments to publicity firms.
The party’s accountants made a full review of its campaign finance declarations after the discrepancies were discovered, Chen said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Detailed records of all expenses were kept, but the accounting team failed to report them accurately to the Control Yuan, she said.
The campaign hired accountant Tuanmu Cheng (端木正) to handle the reporting, Chen said, adding that the party had asked him to explain the mistakes uncovered over the past two days.
Quoting from his response, Chen said that the items were left out because they were under a time crunch.
Tuanmu took the liberty to condense the reporting by declaring the shortfalls as payments to the three marketing companies without informing campaign headquarters, Chen said.
Tuanmu did not respond to a request for comment.
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