The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday said it had made mistakes in declaring 17 records of political donations for its election campaign which add up to about NT$18 million (US$554,529), in response to speculation that the party made false declarations.
The Control Yuan on July 18 publicized on its open data platform the income and expenditure of political donations to candidates for January’s presidential and legislative elections, declared by the political parties and their candidates.
Citing the data, political pundits last week raised questions about the TPP and TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the party’s presidential candidate, having allegedly declared false income and expenditure records.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Two marketing companies — OCT Entertainment Co (時樂) and Neo Creative Marketing Production Co (尼奧創意行銷) — last week said that there were errors in three expenditure records that said the TPP paid them for services, although they did not receive the money.
The TPP on Saturday apologized for the three records, calling them “accounting mistakes,” and pledged to recheck its election campaign cash flow records.
As political pundits continued to question other aspects of the campaign’s obscure financial dealings, the party yesterday held a news conference.
“Finding out about the mistakes in our political donation disclosure data, I was very shocked, and also actually quite nervous,” Ko said.
He said a review of the records showed that the party has invoices for all expenditures and “more importantly, none of it went to any individual’s pocket.”
“We outsourced all the recordkeeping duties, but some people cut corners and did not log every single record of our expenditure, and in the end just logged a large sum of expenditure, and this is why there are errors,” Ko said.
TPP legislative caucus director Vicky Chen (陳智菡), who was deputy manager of the TPP’s election campaign office, said that the review found 17 missed or misreported records caused by accountant Tuanmu Cheng (端木正), who the party hired to declare its financial records.
She said the party has finished checking all the expenditure records for more than NT$410,000, and found 15 records that were not reported and two records that were misreported, which add up to about NT$18.17 million.
“All of our expenditure has invoices and receipts, and we really paid the [commissioned] companies, but the accountant did not declare the payments to the Control Yuan,” Chen said.
When the party asked Tuanmy about the mistakes, he said that it was because “he didn’t have enough time,” she said, adding that they found no illegal conduct or donations going to any individual’s bank account, and that the party would continue to check the remaining records and then submit the correct data to the Control Yuan.
The TPP would also take legal action against the accountant to hold him accountable for his mistakes, she said.
Ko said it is the first time the TPP had a candidate running for president, so the party was inexperienced and figuring some things out, but the errors should not have happened, and the party would correct the data and learn from its mistakes.
Jing Hua Certified Public Accountant Firm (精華會計師事務所), the company that Tuanmu is affiliated with, yesterday issued a statement in Tuanmu’s name, saying that the auditing service provided by the accountant for Ko’s political donations was conducted lawfully.
“We believe the Control Yuan and the prosecutors’ office should investigate the evidence, clarify the truth and prove the accountant innocent,” the statement said.
In related developments, former Taipei deputy mayor Peng Cheng-sheng (彭振聲) was listed as a suspect in a corruption probe over the handling of two real-estate projects, following questioning by Taipei prosecutors yesterday.
Although Peng was released, he must stay at home and is not allowed to leave the country.
In May, prosecutors launched the probe into the two real-estate projects — the Core Pacific City Mall (京華城) redevelopment and the Beitou Shilin Science Park (北投士林科技園區) project — conducted when Ko was Taipei mayor.
Prosecutors questioned Peng about the Core Pacific City Mall redevelopment case, after receiving complaints from third parties about alleged misconduct, illegal profiteering and questionable procedures.
The case relates to city officials approving the mall’s redevelopment into a commercial building complex, with an agreement to allow the floor area ratio to be increased by up to 840 percent.
Taipei city councilors alleged that the agreement enabled the mall’s owner, Core Pacific Group (威京集團), to derive extra financial gains of more than NT$40 billion.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan
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