|
2012 ELECTIONS: DPP
bashes KMT charges as smear
By Chris Wang and Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff Reporters
Democratic Progressive Party
legislators Huang Wei-cher, left, and Tsai Huang-liang hold a press conference
yesterday accusing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of sensationalizing the
Yu Chang Biologics case.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
yesterday said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had launched another smear
campaign against DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) over her
involvement in Yu Chang Biologics Co (宇昌生技股份有限公司), saying the KMT’s allegation
lacked solid evidence.
The KMT said Tsai received improper benefits from the firm when she served in
government, but according to DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), the KMT has
purposely chosen to release only partial information and made the allegation
purely on speculation.
A pair of declassified documents with Tsai’s signature dating from the time she
served as vice premier were provided to the legislature yesterday by Council for
Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) in the
presence of several KMT lawmakers and political pundit Clara Chou (周玉蔻).
Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), one of the scientists who invited
Tsai to join Yu Chang, told reporters on Sunday that the controversy has been
“unfair” to Tsai.
In a press release yesterday, Wong said Tsai should be commended for her
assistance in developing the biotech industry.
Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶), former deputy secretary-general of the Executive Yuan, also
told reporters yesterday that Tsai did not violate “revolving door” regulations
on public officials because the regulation does not apply to deputies and the
biotech industry was not under the scope of Tsai’s supervision at the time.
Chen said the so-called scandal is the result of collaboration between the KMT,
its legislators, government officials, some media outlets and political pundits,
and comes about a month before the presidential election, which stands to
benefit President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign.
Chen said Liu had failed to maintain her administrative neutrality when she said
Tsai had been called a shoo-in as Yu Chang chairperson at an investors’
conference on March 31, 2007, when she was still vice premier.
The KMT said Tsai was guilty of a conflict of interest because of her
involvement with Yu Chang after she left office in August 2007 and she later
became chairperson of the firm, which received investment from the state-owned
National Development Fund (NDF), adding that Tsai had received NT$100 million
(then US$3.3 million) when she sold her shares in the company in 2009.
The KMT has questioned Tsai’s role in the case on at least four grounds —
investment of Tsai’s family businesses, her position as Yu Chang’s chairperson
after leaving office, the classification of related documents as top-secret and
suspected profiteering by Tsai and her family.
Tsai was keen on promoting the biotech industry as one of the nation’s strategic
sectors when she served as vice premier and did not decide to persuade her
family to invest after the start-up failed to attract investors in its initial
stage, former CEPD chairperson Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) said during a press conference.
“The accusation of Tsai wanting to profit from this project is far from the
truth. Without the Tsai family’s funding, the company would not have been
created in time for the deal,” she said.
Ho added that it was not possible that Tsai paved her way to the position of Yu
Chang’s chairperson because she would not have resigned as vice premier if
former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) did not step down after losing the DPP
primary for the 2008 presidential election.
She decided to keep the document on the establishment of Yu Chang and a bid for
Genentech confidential because there were foreign competitors vying for the deal
at the time, Ho said.
“The documents were classified as ‘official secret’ — not ‘national secret’ —
and could be declassified after the contract was signed,” she said.
Tsai’s resignation as vice premier in May 2007 and her assuming the DPP’s
leadership position in May 2008 could have never been planned and that should be
enough to eliminate all the conspiracy theories, said Lien Yuan-lung (連元龍), a
lawyer representing the DPP, adding that the project was “tailor-made” for Tsai.
Tsai did not say her family would invest in Yu Chang in the official documents
nor did her family members attend the investors’ conference, Lien said, adding
that Tsai said publicly on Sept. 15, 2007, that her family would withdraw its
investment once the project was fully funded.
The NDF’s funding of the company did not bypass the required screening
procedures because the NDF approved the funding on April 17, 2007, he said.
The only difference between the funding and other projects, he said, was that it
was planned as a “special project” by a top-down decision, the same process as
when the Ma administration approved the investment of NT$5 billion in China
Airlines in 2009, which posted a NT$3.8 billion loss that year.
In response to accusations by the KMT that Tsai masterminded the passage of the
Biotech and New Pharmaceuticals Industry Development Act (生技新藥產業發展條例) in 2007 to
help establish Yu Chang, the DPP said that piece of legislation was pushed
through by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who himself has said the act
was beneficial to the nation.
According to the legislature’s gazette, Wang played an active role in the
enactment and passage of the act and was part of efforts jointly exerted by the
legislature, then dominated by the KMT, and executive branches to offer various
incentives to boost the sector.
The act was supported by 104 lawmakers, out of a total of 225 seats, across
party lines, led by Wang and then-legislative deputy speaker David Chung (鍾榮吉)
of the People First Party, marking the first and only time in the nation’s
history that a bill was sponsored by the legislative speaker and the deputy
speaker.
Sent to the legislature’s clerk on June 6, 2007, the act swiftly cleared the
legislature before the legislative session went into summer recess on June 15,
which would not have been possible without consensus among political parties, as
the political climate at that time was confrontational.
“The act has benefited the nation. If it hadn’t been passed at that time, it was
likely that the biotech and new pharmaceutical industry was doomed,” Wang said
today.
Wang said government officials involved in the development of the industry and
professionals could corroborate his argument.
“Go ahead and ask them their views on the act,” Wang said.
|
