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TPP suspends Huang Shan-shan's membership
The Taiwan People's Party (TPP) has suspended lawmaker Huang Shan-shan's membership for three years due to her involvement in a financial scandal currently dogging the party. However, her legislative seat currently remains unaffected.
According to the party's central review committee, the suspension of Huang's membership means she also loses her position as deputy head of the party's legislative caucus and her central committee membership. Huang voluntarily resigned from her central committee post last week.
Review committee head Lee Wei-hua says the TPP will continue to investigate the financial misreporting and is also now reviewing Huang's eligibility as a lawmaker.
Huang has said on several occasions that she is willing to take full responsibility over allegations concerning the flawed reporting of political donations and expenses during January's presidential and legislative election.
The TPP's review committee has also decided to expel Lee Wen-tsung, who was the finance chief for Ko Wen-je's presidential election campaign office, and Tuanmu Cheng, an accountant contracted by the party's finance department.
In related news, the Control Yuan has confirmed media reports that it found the TPP's political donations report incomplete and immediately sent it back to the party on 8 April. The Control Yuan says the TPP submitted the complete version on 3 July.
The statement comes after the Mirror Weekly magazine reported yesterday that TPP chair Ko Wen-zhe and his presidential campaign manager Huang Shan-shan knew about the accounting problems several months ago.
The magazine said the Control Yuan had discovered a discrepancy of NT$20 million in the TPP accounts, and the party's accountant "adjusted" the accounts and resubmitted the report to the Yuan in July.
When asked by the media whether he knew about the NT$20 million discrepancy yesterday, Ko said repeatedly that he didn't but Taipei city councillor Lin Liang-jun (林亮君) criticized Ko as being dishonest, saying that Ko has yet to explain where the money went.
