Proceeds totaling NT$1.02 billion (US$36.7 million) from recovered ill-gotten Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assets and an administrative settlement are to be placed in a fund in the first quarter of next year, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said.
The committee on Saturday said that it had so far recovered NT$75.89 million in unfairly or illegally acquired assets, as well as NT$950 million from a settlement with Central Motion Pictures Corp (CMPC, 中影公司).
The film studio on Aug. 24 agreed to hand over 330 films and NT$950 million, representing the amount CMPC was undervalued when it was in 2006 sold by Central Investment Co, a KMT affiliate.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
The committee had initially frozen NT$11.8 billion of CMPC’s assets, which the studio appealed. The parties later reached a settlement agreeing to return the undervalued amount from the 2006 sale and transfer ownership of the films to the government in exchange for the committee repealing the company’s designation as a KMT affiliate, and unfreezing its remaining assets. The Taipei High Administrative Court recognized the settlement on Sept. 17.
The Transitional Justice Commission outlined possible uses for the fund: providing therapy for victims of political violence; establishing service centers to care for the survivors of political persecution; a reward system for those who preserve historical sites related to the White Terror period; and a database for records related to political persecution, it said.
After the commission concludes in May, other government agencies that handle transitional justice work could apply to use the fund, it said.
Commission member Frank Wang (王增勇) said that the commission had been unable to establish a fund with the recovered assets, as previously it had only recovered about NT$10 million.
The commission was concerned that if a fund is not established before it concludes, it might not be possible to do so later, Wang said.
The commission must wait until cases related to the recovered assets complete judicial procedures before the money can be used, committee spokesman Sun Pin (孫斌) said.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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