Prior to 1990, the budgeted fee for informants often reached several hundred million NT dollars. After the legislative elections and more than 10 years of cuts and questioning from legislators, the amount has dropped to tens of millions. The main reason for this budget slash is the difficulty in assessing the reliability of informants, so that "extras" following verification often get pocked by investigators.
For instance, certain investigators may accidentally acquire valuable information. However, their reports exaggerate the difficulties encountered and expenses made to obtain the information.
The informant's fee naturally ends up in the pocket of the informant and the individual who accidentally leaked the information may have unknowingly become an "informant" to the bureau.
Hence "informants" are not necessarily informants -- a portion of them may well have been used only for claiming investigative expenses. I suspect that this kind of scenario should be familiar to investigators above 50 years of age.
Jan Shou-jung is a legislative assistant.
Translated by Angela Hong
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