Taipei Times
Date: Mar 03, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday denied a local news report that alleged possible foul play in an unusual decline in the KMT’s party assets by more than NT$5 billion (US$150 million) over a period of less than six months last year, saying the drop was caused by legitimate reasons.

In a statement issued yesterday, KMT Culture and Communications Committee vice director Lee Ming-hsien (李明賢) said that the net worth of the KMT’s assets was NT$24.2 billion when New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) took the helm of the party in January last year, before dropping to NT$16.6 billion at the end of last year.

Lee said that the fall was primarily due to the party’s losses in lawsuits or decisions not to pursue cases filed by other parties seeking to reclaim some of the KMT’s assets.

“It also reflects property that the KMT voluntarily returned to the state or gave away. Most of the property was land located in New Taipei City’s Banciao (板橋) and Bali (八里) districts, Tainan City and Hualien County,” Lee said.

Lee said that there are two other reasons contributing to the decline: Taiwan’s plunging stock market, which has caused KMT-held stock to reduce in value; and the party’s administrative expenditures and overhead costs.     [FULL  STORY]