The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) would initiate reform mechanisms to prevent political donation disclosure errors and promptly deal with any future incidents, TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
The TPP and Ko, the party’s presidential candidate in the Jan. 13 elections, have been questioned by political pundits and local media last week about allegedly declaring false political donation income and expenses to the Control Yuan, while the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau started to investigate the issue.
There have allegedly been overlapping members in Ko’s election campaign office and marketing companies the party commissioned for promotional services.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
SUSPICIONS
Facing several accusations and speculations, the TPP last week admitted some donation expenditure records were flawed, saying that an accountant is responsible for the flawed records.
The party said it would go through all the donation records to check for errors.
However, more questions about the party’s political donation disclosure data have been raised.
Taipei City Councilor Lin Liang-chun (林亮君) on Saturday questioned in a Facebook post why up to about 97 percent of the “donation income from individuals” to Ko’s election campaign was in “cash,” while most of his supporters are believed to be young people that are expected to be familiar with digital financial instruments.
She alleged that the party and Ko had misreported all the online donations as cash donations to the Control Yuan.
“You can tell it’s a mistake at a glance. The wrong category [cash] was checked,” Ko told reporters yesterday.
The TPP received about 180,000 donations in all, and they have reviewed about one-third of the records, he said.
MECHANISMS
The issue has dragged on for a week, and the party has reflected on the problems, learned from the bitter experience and would initiate a reform, he said.
First, the party would reinstate a “financial supervision committee,” which was not operating during the presidential election campaign, he said, adding that only one or two people were in charge of the income and expenditure accounts and many duties were outsourced, which was a big problem.
The party headquarters should establish a digital account system, which can be used with a donations account in elections, Ko said.
Digitalizing data would prevent mistakes from manually logging them in, he said.
Second, the party should have “long-term cooperation with a group of lawyers,” as political parties are often involved in legal matters, he said.
Third, the TPP should re-establish a “response task force,” which it used to have, he said, adding that how the party has handled the recent accusations is “out of tune.”
Ko said he has asked TPP Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), who was the campaign office manager, to head a task force to deal with the aftermath of the political donation disclosure problems, and that the party is to hold a news conference every day to explain their review process.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by