Former TPP finance chief takes blame for campaign expense issues

Taipei, Aug. 12 (CNA) The former chief financial officer of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) apologized on Monday for the discrepancies in the party's declaration of political donations and expenses for the 2024 presidential campaign and said he assumed full responsibility.

Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗), who was the finance chief for TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je's (柯文哲) election campaign office, said at a press conference that it was his fault for not double-checking the declaration on political donations and campaign expenses.

As a TPP member, Lee said he would accept any reprimands imposed by the party.

His statement came amid general suspicions over the party's reporting of political donations and campaign expenses, that became more pointed after a representative of a public relations firm said last week that it never did business with or received money from the TPP.

One of the glaring issues with the TPP's declaration was an entry showing that it paid the company, OCT Entertainment Co., NT$5 million for publicity-related services, leading to questions over where the money went.

After a review of the overall declaration of expenses, 17 were found to have been inaccurately declared, said Vicky Chen (陳智菡), former deputy chief of Ko's election campaign office.

Chen said the inaccurate declarations were the fault of Tuanmu Cheng (端木正), an accountant contracted by the party's finance department.

He arbitrarily claimed approximately NT$18.17 million in expenses to OCT, Neo Creative Marketing Production Co., and Mu Ke Public Relations Marketing Limited without notifying the party's campaign team, Chen said.

Tuanmu claimed he did not "have enough time" to audit the expenses, Chen said.

Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), former head of the campaign office who was also at the press event, said Ko, one of three presidential candidates in the Jan. 13, 2024 vote, received nearly 180,000 small-amount donations during the campaign.

Because of that, the audit into its donations and expenses required a lot of time and manpower, Huang said, acknowledging that those circumstances should not be an excuse.

She said the accounting issues were mainly due to omissions, shortfalls and false declarations and that no unified invoices or receipts were forged, and that the party would submit corrected information to the Control Yuan, which is in charge of overseeing campaign donations and expenses.

Huang also vowed that the TPP will bear any legal responsibility and cooperate with the Control Yuan's investigation, Huang said, adding that the accountant will also be probed in accordance with the law.

As the finance chief, Lee said he had signed off on each declared expense but because there was a shortage of manpower, an accountant was contracted to help file the declaration.

Lee said he did not know there had been a problem with the accountant, and apologized to the party's supporters and the companies that were dragged into the issue.

The use of Mu Ke Public Relations Marketing as one of the companies cited in the expenses particularly raised suspicions because it is owned by Lee's younger sister Lee Wen-chuan (李文娟).

The former finance chief said his sister did not sign off on the expenses and that she only assisted in other financial matters, without elaborating.

Also on Monday, Tuanmu issued a separate statement saying that the case was under investigation, and he expressed the hope that the Control Yuan and prosecutors will follow the evidence at hand to clarify the truth and prove his innocence.

Another of the questions raised by the declaration was why the NT$770,000 in earnings from the "KP Show," a concert organized by the TPP for Ko last year, was not declared as the event was allegedly billed as a "fundraiser."

Huang responded that the event was a commercial activity, and that the KP Show had been planned since March or April last year and was executed by Mu Ke.

Huang reiterated that the concert was not for fundraising, but rather a pure commercial activity, which she said Ko's campaign office clarified before the election.