Legislators across party lines yesterday panned the government's financial management over the Rebar Group saga, with pan-blue lawmakers demanding that top-ranking government officials step down to assume responsibility for the debacle.
Several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators took Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Two of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group's (
This in turn triggered a bank run on another group member, The Chinese Bank (
Rebar Group chairman Wang You-theng (
DPP Legislator Charles Chiang (
"The Chinese Bank had been in trouble for a long time," he said. "How did [Wang] manage to walk away with the money?"
Chiang said that the FSC should have taken over or supervised the bank instead of "sitting on a landmine."
"Premier Su, you did not meet public expectations in terms of financial management," Chiang said.
"We hope you can show some resolve [in dealing with the matter]," Chiang added.
DPP Legislator Yu Jan-daw (余政道) said he suspected some government officials or legislators might have been helping the bank to cover up its poor financial conditions.
DPP Legislator Wu Ming-ming (
In a separate press conference, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) called for FSC Chairman Shih Jun-ji (施俊吉) and Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) to assume responsibility and step down.
"As The Chinese Bank has been under government supervision for five years as Shih himself said, why was there a run on the bank?" he asked.
"[It happened] because the government does not take financial management seriously," Tsai added.
"Shih should take responsibility for this," Tsai added.
KMT Legislator Chi Kuo-tung (
"The [Financial Restructuring Fund] is supposed to facilitate the restructuring or liquidation of poor-quality assets in the banking industry, but the government has only used the fund to salvage banks whose assets had been stolen by the banks' management," Chi said.
People First Party lawmakers also called a press conference, issuing the same demands.
"The legislature had given the government the carrot and stick it said it needed to maintain financial order. But why did it let The Chinese Bank incident happen?" asked PFP Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄).
Liu was referring to the fund as the carrot and the financial regulator as the stick.
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