In another new twist to the ongoing saga of financial irregularities regarding bank accounts held by family members and relatives of independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜), Minister of Finance Paul Chiu (邱正雄) declined to reveal the results of his ministry's investigations into Soong's finances, saying that the findings had to remain confidential while they were forwarded to the Control Yuan on Friday.
Chiu's intention to submit his finding to the Control Yuan follows a request to the ministry by prosecutors for information on possible irregularities.
Ironically the prosecutors request for information has resulted in less information becoming available to the public than might otherwise have been since as Chiu told the legislature's Finance Committee last week an article in taxation laws prohibits the ministry from releasing any information on its investigations into possible tax evasion cases.
PHOTO: HAKU HUANG, LIBERTY TIMES
As a result of this Chiu told the Finance Committee nothing new.
This restriction, however, does not, however, apply to releasing information to the Control Yuan, the supreme watchdog for all government agencies, to an investigative team of which, Chiu said, his ministry will report all it has discovered.
This might still frustrate the public's desire to know more about the scandal surrounding the presidential candidate since the Control Yuan is bound by the same rules of secrecy.
It has, however, proved in the past to be less than leak-proof.
Li Shen-yi (
Chiu also said that the Taipei Prosecutors' Office had made a telephone call to the ministry, requesting it to provide information related to Soong's case. The ministry will turn over its investigation results in one or two days, Chiu said.
Chou Chih-jung (
The prosecutors' office will soon begin questioning people involved in the case, prosecutors said.
However, leaks from the ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB,
The MJIB is believed to have found that Chen Pi-yun (
Wang Kuang-yu (
"Prevention and suppression of money laundering is a major responsibility of the bureau's anti-money laundering center, which has taken the initiative to probe into the case," Wang said.
However, Wang declined to release information on when, to whom, and how much money Chen transferred to the US, on grounds that secrecy had to be kept during the investigation, as demanded by related laws and regulations.
MJIB sources also said that an official close to Soong had dispatched money to more than 30 provincial assembly deputies in 1994 during assembly elections and in 1995 during assembly speaker elections. The official, who is now holding a minister's portfolio, sent the money through one of Soong's relatives' bank accounts, the sources said.
Transport minister Lin Feng-cheng (
"I have forgotten," he said, "it was too long ago."
"It should be easy to find out where the money was from and going to after investigation," Lin said.
Soong has yet to respond to the further accusations made against him in the past week. He says he is waiting for New Party legislator Hsieh Chi-ta (
Soong has since last week entrusted Hsieh to probe into the case as "independent investigator."
But Hsieh and Soong's campaign officials have criticized the MJIB for spreading "unfounded rumors" as well as its failure to keep information relating to a case under investigation secret.
Chin Heng-wei (
"While procedural justice [due process] may not be observed in this case, it is only in a dog fight in the KMT of this scale that the unlawful dealings within the party be exposed," Chin said.
At a press conference on Dec. 9, Yang revealed that Soong's family were the beneficiaries of at least NT$140 million in mysterious bank deposits from unknown sources while Soong was the secretary-general of the KMT in the early 1990s. Since then, the amounts involved in the scandal have snowballed.
According to a high level official at the finance ministry, the money now acknowledged by the Soong camp itself is NT$480 million, NT$240 million in Bank of Taiwan checks; NT$60 million in Chen's account; and US$60 million (around NT$180 million) transferred to the US.
"That does not include what could have been spent already, such as the money possibly given to provincial assembly deputies," the official said.
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