Tue, Aug 20, 2024 page2

• Accounting had ‘unimaginable errors’: TPP

  PARTY DECLINE: The TPP has lost support among white-collar workers and highly-educated voters, demographics where its support is usually strongest, a poll showed

  • By Lee I-chia and Hsieh Chun-lin / Staff reporters
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  Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said the party’s presidential election campaign had serious accounting flaws and unimaginable errors in data reported to the Control Yuan.

  The TPP and its chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who was also the party’s presidential candidate, have faced questions about flaws in their political donations income and expenditure report, and whether they deliberately reported false records.

  Ko on Sunday said he has asked Huang, who was his campaign manager, to head the party’s task force to deal with the political donation disclosure issues and to hold daily news conferences for the public.

  

  Taiwan People’s Party Legislator and former campaign manager for the presidential election Vivian Huang speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: CNA

  At the first news conference yesterday, Huang said the office “certainly had serious flaws in the process, but so far we have found the receipts of all the records we failed to report and that were incorrectly logged by the accountant, and they were all used for the election.”

  “We express our deepest apology to all TPP supporters,” she said. “We understand your sadness and your anger.”

  “The accounting process had serious flaws, and the reporting process had unimaginable errors, conducted rashly and disorderly, so we will carefully look into each financial record and cooperate with an investigation by prosecutors,” she said.

  They have found two incorrectly logged records, including two expenditure records of NT$960 (US$29.97) and NT$110 which were incorrectly logged by the accountant as NT$960,110, she said, adding that another is a NT$56,000 payment to buy honey, which was incorrectly logged as NT$5,600.

  Huang said they also found about 70 to 80 receipts, certificates or remittance records of expenditures that were not declared, which include NT$29,600 used for making mugs, NT$32,761 for making socks, NT$18,810 for a software fee, as well as meal, taxi, parking and transportation fees.

  Asked why the office reported a NT$9 million expense for tissues, she said they were used in campaign giveaways, including tissues that cost NT$1.36 per bag and scouring pads that cost NT$3.9 per piece.

  Regarding the car rental fee for Ko’s US visit reaching NT$890,000, Huang said there should have been two car rental records — one for Ko’s visit and another for vice presidential candidate Cynthia Wu’s (吳欣盈) US visit — but the accountant logged both as “eastern US trip.”

  Meanwhile, the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation yesterday published its latest poll which showed that the TPP no longer has a high support rate from highly-educated people and white-collar workers.

  Asked which political party they favored the most, 34.2 percent said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 23.2 percent said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and 13.8 percent said the TPP.

  Asked why the TPP’s support rate only dropped 2.2 percent after the donation disclosure scandals, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said it might be because the poll was conducted between Monday and Wednesday last week, when the scandals were just revealed.

  However, he said that while the TPP previously had the highest support from highly-educated people and white-collar workers, they fell to second place behind the DPP in support from highly-educated people, and to third place behind the DPP and KMT for white-collar workers.

  Asked about people’s “affection temperature” — with 0 for “strongly dislike” and 100 for “strongly like” — toward the parties, You said the TPP received an average of 40.33, suggesting the public feels “cold” about the party.

  Compared with the poll from November last year, people who “like” the TPP fell by 14.7 percent, while people who “dislike” the party increased by 11.3 percent, he said, adding that it suggests the party has lost the favor of nearly 3 million people and gained dislike from about 2.2 million people.
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