The Executive Yuan’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday rejected Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers’ accusations that its field investigation into the party’s investment in a Palauan hotel had become a tourist trip.
At a morning news conference in Taipei yesterday, KMT caucus secretary-general William Tseng (曾銘宗) said that two committee employees took a four-day trip to Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — in August last year to inspect the Palasia Hotel Palau, of which the KMT-controlled Central Investment Co and its subsidiary own 80 percent.
“However, the 70-plus page trip report submitted by the committee talked about diplomacy and tourism, which are not even remotely related to its duties,” Tseng said, adding that most of the report’s content were pictures and appendixes, and that not a single word in its half-page of feedback and suggestions was about the committee’s actual work.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The report raised questions about the “credibility of the committee’s future decisions,” as it was the main document on which the committee based its rejection of the company’s request to sell the hotel, Tseng said.
He said if the committee refuses to apologize, he would confront Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) at the next legislative session and ask him if he would accept such a sloppy report.
KMT Legislator Tung Hui-chen (童惠珍) said that the report served as proof that the committee was established by the Democratic Progressive Party for the mere purpose of bringing down the KMT.
Shortly after the news conference, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) rejected the KMT lawmakers’ allegations, saying that the purpose of the trip was to inspect the KMT’s overseas assets, not sightseeing.
The committee decided to take the trip after Central Investment criticized it for rejecting the firm’s request to sell the hotel without first sending someone to inspect it, Shih said.
Committee staff made the trip along with representatives from Central Investment, Shih said, adding that they did not have any set plans for the first day, and met with Palauan Bureau of Tourism officials, tourism proprietors and representatives of the Palasia Hotel Palau on the second day.
On the third day, they met with Taiwan’s overseas government staff and agricultural enterprises, before attending a banquet in the afternoon celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Palasia Hotel Palau’s establishment to investigate the hotel’s operations, Shih said.
The portion about tourism in the committee’s report mostly concerned committee staff’s meetings with the Palauan Bureau of Tourism’s director and the Palasia Hotel Palau’s general manager, she said.
The celebratory banquet was also attended by Palauan Vice President Raynold Oilouch and Central Investment chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹), she added.
‘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