The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is to send officials to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) archives to examine records related to the party’s assets.
“We originally planned to visit the KMT’s archives on Friday, but had to postpone the visit until tomorrow [today] after the KMT told us that officials in charge of the records would not be there on Friday,” committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said in an interview with the Central News Agency yesterday.
The committee plans to send officials to the archives today, but that could change due to reports of planned protests against the committee’s actions, Shih said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The Executive Yuan-affiliated committee has interviewed former KMT treasurers Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) and Hsu Li-teh (徐立德), Shih said, declining to reveal the details of their conversations.
The plan to examine the KMT’s historical records came after committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) questioned the source of the KMT’s income earlier this month.
Party membership fees — which the KMT said it used to fund its affiliate Central Investment Co (中央投資公司) — only contributed 3 to 4 percent of its income in the 1950s, when it derived between 50 percent and 70 percent of its income from government subsidies, Koo said.
While government subsidies are a legal source of income for a political party, Koo questioned whether the KMT had abused its power during its authoritarian rule to secure the subsidies.
As the matter would require an audit of the KMT Central Standing Committee’s meeting minutes from that era, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee reached an agreement in negotiations to request that the KMT’s archives provide the necessary documents.
The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee two weeks ago issued an official letter to the KMT’s archives requesting that it provide relevant meeting minutes within five days, said a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“However, the KMT requested a deadline extension, citing a need for more time to find and organize the documents,” the source said.
When asked for comment on Saturday, KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦) said the party would handle the issue calmly and in accordance with the law.
“Nevertheless, I have to remind the illegal and unconstitutional Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee that it will only be conducting an administrative investigation, not a judicial one,” Hu said.
The KMT plans to record the entire visit, Hu said, urging the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to take into account public perception of its actions and adhere to the ideals of procedural justice, democracy and rule of law.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS