The National Women’s League last month said it would donate NT$16 billion (US$515.53 million) to government agencies in charge of providing long-term care, but the Ministry of Health and Welfare is inclined to refuse the donation, a source said.
The donation was discussed in a recent cross-ministerial meeting, the source said, adding that because the league is still being investigated by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee over its affiliation with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), its financial sources remain unclear.
Although the league has declared its finances to the Ministry of the Interior, it has not explained more than NT$9 billion of so-called “surcharge for the military” collected in the past.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The league has denied more than once that it is affiliated with the KMT and expressed a desire to donate to long-term care services.
The ministry asked the Cabinet for guidance over the issue.
The Cabinet said it would be appropriate to wait for the assets committee to finalize its investigations into ill-gotten party assets, because the league would be banned from disposing of its assets if it is declared an affiliate of the KMT, sources said.
“We cannot accept this donation,” a high-ranked Cabinet official was quoted as saying in the meeting.
Meanwhile, the assets committee’s preliminary investigation suggests that the league’s financial sources in its early years not only included the surcharge for the military, but also a surcharge imposed for the purpose of national defense, when the Republic of China government had just relocated to Taiwan.
In February 1950, the then-Taiwan Provincial Government followed instructions from the former Southeast Military and Political Executive Office to impose a coastal defense surcharge (台灣省防衛捐徵收辦法) to support the military. The surcharge included eight different types of taxes, electricity bills and import taxes at various rates for 10 years.
An assets committee member said the league’s assets included funds from both the military and the coastal defense taxes, and if the league were not affiliated to the KMT it is unlikely that it would have had the right to collect the surcharges, adding that the league’s establishment was a product of the party-state era.
The assets committee plans to hold a hearing late next month to clarify whether the league is a KMT affiliate.
In related news, the assets committee on Friday won an appeal to keep KMT assets frozen following a previous verdict by the High Administrative Court in Taipei that ruled in the KMT’s favor, lifting a freeze on NT$740 million on the basis of irrecoverable damage to party operations.
Friday’s ruling came after the committee filed an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court, which determined that no irrecoverable damage to KMT operations had occurred and that the committee’s lifting of a freeze on about NT$150 million in January was sufficient for the party’s needs.
The committee intended a portion of the frozen cash released to the KMT to be used to pay severance and retirement packages to laid off employees, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said.
She expressed her appreciation to the Supreme Administrative Court for “its understanding of the facts and for knowing that the KMT has not been irreparably damaged.”
Additional reporting by Yang Kuo-wen and Chen Yu-fu
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to