TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Ill-Gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee (不當黨產處理委員會) officially named radio station Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) as an affiliate of the Kuomintang (KMT), allowing it to demand the transfer of NT$7.73 billion (US$249 million) in assets to state coffers, reports said Tuesday (September 24).
The money mostly comes from 13 plots of land and the buildings on top owned by the popular broadcaster, the Central News Agency reported. One of the plots now houses one of Taipei City’s best known luxury apartment complexes, known as The Palace.
The committee is an independent government agency entrusted with investigating the illegal transfer of government assets to KMT bodies during the party’s authoritarian rule.
Until BCC was sold to four companies in 2006, its personnel, finances and management were under practical control by the KMT, the committee concluded at a news conference Tuesday.
The broadcaster still owned an illegal 109,000 square meters of land, but had sold or transferred NT$7.73 billion worth of other land and assets to third parties, including the land for The Palace on Taipei’s Renai Road section 3, which was transferred to a KMT-owned investment company in 1999, the committee said.
However, BCC’s radio frequencies would not be affected by Tuesday’s ruling, as they fell under the jurisdiction of the National Communications Commission (NCC), CNA reported.
