Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the party’s presidential candidate in this year’s election, yesterday denied that the Control Yuan had in April informed him that his campaign office had filed incomplete donation disclosure reports.
After the Control Yuan published data on parties’ campaign donation income and expenditures, political pundits have raised a series of questions about the figures reported by Ko’s campaign office, sparking speculation that it made false declarations.
The TPP last week admitted having made some errors in its accounting and disclosure process, leading to unreported or misreported items, and said that Tuanmu Cheng (端木正), an accountant contracted to handle Ko’s election campaign financial reporting, was responsible.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
In a news conference on Tuesday last week, the TPP said that in the expenditure records it reviewed so far, it found 15 unreported items totaling NT$18.17 million (US$567,937) and two misreported items.
However, the Control Yuan said the TPP had submitted Ko’s campaign finance report on the online declaration system on April 7, but as it found the data to be incomplete the next morning, it immediately returned the report to the declarant to make corrections, the Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine reported yesterday.
The Control Yuan said that Ko’s election campaign office corrected the report and resubmitted it on July 3, the magazine reported.
The Control Yuan provided six accounts with access to the political donation declaration online system to Ko’s campaign office, but it only used four of them, the report said.
The accounts were used by Ko; Tuanmu, including a man who helped him input the data; the office’s accountant, Ho Ai-ting (何璦廷); and Lee Wen-chuan (李文娟), director of marketing firm Muko (木可行銷公關), which handled events and merchandising for the campaign, the magazine said.
What remains unanswered is why three expenditure records — reported by Ko’s campaign office as payments totaling NT$9.16 million to two marketing companies, which denied having received the money — were submitted after April 15, the deadline to declare campaign donations, and who made the modifications, Mirror Media said.
At a TPP news conference in Taipei yesterday, TPP Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), who was Ko’s campaign manager, said the report the Control Yuan returned on April 8 only informed the office of “incomplete data,” but did not mention a NT$20 million difference.
She said the campaign office’s financial division contacted the Control Yuan’s contact person, who found that the reported donation income was higher than the amount in its bank account, so the division asked the accountant to check for any unreported items.
The accountant corrected the data up until July 3, and the system has a record of who logged in to make the modifications, she said, adding that the TPP could take legal action against Mirror Media over its reporting.
Meanwhile, the TPP yesterday afternoon held a Central Review Committee meeting to discuss punishing party members involved in the controversy.
After nearly four hours of discussion, the committee decided to suspend Huang for three years, and expel Tuanmu and Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗), chief financial officer for Ko’s presidential campaign, from the party, committee chairman Lee Wei-hwa (李偉華) said.
In other news, Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), is to appear at a Taipei City Hospital ethics hearing today over a Facebook post that seemingly suggested that she had contravened rules regulating civil servants.
In a post dated Aug. 6, Chen, who works at the government-run hospital, said she had started a company under her son’s name to avoid regulations barring civil servants from holding two jobs.
Additional reporting by Gan Meng-lin and CNA
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
RSS