Lawmaker Huang Shan-shan apologizes again over TPP finance scandal

Taipei, Aug. 19 (CNA) Legislator Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) apologized to party supporters on Monday over allegations concerning the flawed reporting of political expenses during January's presidential election.

Huang, who headed the TPP's campaign office for party Chairman Ko Wen-je's (柯文哲) presidential bid in the Jan. 13 elections, said she takes full responsibility for the "flawed" declaration of political donations and expenses during a news conference in Taipei held to provide an update on the party's internal investigation into the matter.

The TPP legislator-at-large previously made an apology on Aug. 12 over questions raised following the Control Yuan's publication in mid-July of campaign finance reports submitted by candidates in the 2024 presidential and legislative elections through a website set up under the Political Donations Act.

Those reports included the first declarations made by all three presidential candidates in the January election -- TPP's Ko, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party, and Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) of the Kuomintang -- regarding dedicated bank accounts set up for political donations made to support their respective campaign.

During the news conference on Monday, Huang admitted there were serious flaws in bookkeeping and how campaign finances were handled, and vowed to examine every detail in the party's internal investigation, while cooperating with an investigation launched by prosecutors on Aug. 12.

Huang blamed the accountants for some of the "mistakenly" reported figures in Ko's declarations, using a NT$56,000 (US$1,750) purchase of honey that was listed as an expense of NT$5,600 as an example.

She also claimed the party has checked receipts and money transfer records and found that some of the expenses were not included in Ko's declaration, hence the discrepancies in the campaign finance report submitted to the Control Yuan.

Huang reiterated that the party will submit a revised declaration to the Control Yuan once it completes a comprehensive audit, as was promised at a news conference on Aug. 10.

On Sunday, Ko said he has decided to launch reforms of the party he founded in 2019, after discovering that the party's financial supervisory committee was not involved in his presidential campaign.

The party needs to establish its own bookkeeping, instead of relying on outside accountants, the former Taipei mayor said.

Although Huang has resigned from the TPP's central committee, Ko said he has asked her to lead the team that handles the fallout from the campaign finance declaration.

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office searched the office of a company that exclusively sells merchandise bearing the former Taipei mayor's trademark "kp" logo, as well as an accounting firm blamed by the TPP for Ko's problematic declarations on Aug. 14.

The Control Yuan announced on Aug. 13 that it had begun to look into Ko's declaration a day earlier, as parties or individual candidates can face a fine of NT$60,000-NT$1.2 million for offense, such as submitting false declarations, under the Political Donations Act.