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.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS