Taipei Times
Date: Dec 25, 2015
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday accused

Democratic Progressive Party pokesperson Wang Min-sheng speaks during a press conference in Taipei yesterday next to a printout questioning whether funds from the sale of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) properties are being used to fund the party’s election campaigns. Photo: CNA

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) of engaging in land speculation during his term as commissioner of the then-Taoyuan County.

Speaking at a news conference in Taipei, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said that when Chu served as Taoyuan County commissioner between 2001 and 2009, he used government resources to engage in land speculation on plots of land in the so-called “Jhongjheng Arts District” (中正藝文特區), by purposefully lowering the publicly announced values of the plots he intended to expropriate in the district, only to immediately raise them after seizure.

“Chu carried out the practice in five sections of the district. One of them, section 46, had a publicly announced land value of NT$33,000 [US$1,000 at current exchange rates] per ping [3.3m2] in 2004, but it was increased to NT$75,000 in 2007 after Chu seized the land in the section the same year,” Chen said.     [FULL  STORY]