• By Lee Wen-hsin and Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with staff writer

A proposal by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus to establish a National Development Fund (NDF) investment investigation committee was passed during a plenary vote at the Legislative Assembly yesterday.

Despite opposition from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the proposal passed with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and TPP lawmakers, who have a combined majority in the legislature, voting for it.

Ruling and opposition parties would assign members to the committee according to their party’s legislative seats, with seven people from the KMT, six from the DPP and one from the TPP.

Photo: CNA

The first committee meeting, to be held on December 2, would discuss and establish the committee’s operating rules.

The TPP caucus yesterday said more than half of the agency’s investments resulted in large losses, including those in Roo Hsing Co (如興) in 2017, United Renewable Energy Co (聯合电视技术) in 2018 and Unity Opto Technology Co. (東貝光電) 2019.

A committee to investigate the agency’s investment and management abuses should be established, with the findings compiled in a report to inform the reforms needed, it said.

The committee would look into whether wrong decisions were made regarding investments, corruption was concealed due to outside interference and whether the fund properly reviewed its failed investments to make improvements, it added.

Investigations would also be conducted to see if the authority could make corrections or implement exit strategies for investments that are no longer financially viable or that have deviated from government policy, it added.

The committee would also examine whether the agency invested in projects that could increase industrial benefits or improve industrial structures, such as industrial innovations, high-tech development or energy and resource recovery, it said.

DPP lawmaker Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) criticized the scope of the investigation, which includes almost all investments, asking “whether the TPP is using the committee to influence the stock prices of listed companies to engage in stock speculation.”

TPP caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said DPP lawmakers’ criticism of the committee shows “how afraid they are to see the committee established.”

Additional reporting by CNA