The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday pledged to inspect the operations of state-owned utilities CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油), Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) and Taiwan Water Corp (台灣自來水), amid growing public concern over the quality and reliability of their services.
“We will check to see if we could enhance the durability of the state-owned companies’ facilities and improve their operating efficiency,” Acting Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told reporters after a farewell party for Lee Chih-kung (李世光), who stepped down as minister of economic affairs to take responsibility for a nationwide blackout on Tuesday.
Shen said the inspections would take place soon after a government probe to clarify whether CPC or the state refiner’s contractor Lumax International Corp (巨路) was responsible for the massive blackout and how CPC is going to compensate Taipower.
Photo: CNA
Commenting on the temporary outage that affected nearly 7,000 households in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) on Thursday night, Shen said the incident was not caused by a power shortage.
“It was triggered by a defective switch in the distribution feeder,” Shen said, adding that he has asked Taipower to focus on enhancing power stability, especially as a string of hot days has boosted power consumption across the nation.
Taipower chairman Chu Wen-chen (朱文成), who attended the farewell party, said that given the high density of power distribution feeders in Wanhua, a malfunctioning switch leading to a power outage was not unexpected.
Lee said he did not think he was being made a scapegoat for Tuesday’s blackout.
“It is a common practice for a political appointee to bear political responsibility by stepping down,” Lee said. “I believe Shen will do his best to lead the ministry.”
Lee said he has returned to his post at National Taiwan University and had his first meeting with his postgraduate students on Thursday night.
He was a professor at the university’s Institute of Applied Mechanics before being appointed economics minister on May 20 last year.
Shen, 66, has been working at various positions in the ministry for more than 40 years, including the Export Processing Zone Administration and the Industrial Development Bureau.
He served as the director-
general of the bureau before being appointed as a vice economics minister in charge of administrative affairs in 2015.
He was appointed deputy economics minister in charge of political affairs in May last year.
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