Much public anger has been directed at Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) over the repeated food safety scandals involving its cooking oils. The conglomerate certainly deserves all the criticism it gets for being despicable enough to exhibit such a complete lack of business ethics by selling lard-based cooking oils containing livestock feed-grade oil, not to mention that the latest food scandal is the third involving the company in a year. But where is the government in all this turmoil? What has it actually done about the “black-hearted” enterprises that put consumers’ health at risk? Exactly which effective measures has it imposed to ensure companies’ vigilance toward food safety?
On Oct. 13, the public was treated to the news that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) presided over a national security meeting that day to address food safety issues. Yet the conclusion reached at the meeting — in which Ma condemned the manufacturers embroiled in the scandals and called on the public to join forces with the government to boycott these firms — was so pathetic that the public did not know whether to laugh or cry. Ma’s conclusion left many asking themselves: “Why do we need the government if all it does when a food safety crisis erupts is ask the public to boycott the culpable companies?”
Not only has the government appeared incompetent in its handling of the matter — as evidenced by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Finance’s inability to get on the same page and give the public a coherent answer on how long it will take to clarify the destinations of all the oil meant for animal feed that was imported from Vietnam — a string of media reports alleging that Ma has a close relationship with Ting Hsin founder-owners the Wei (魏) family and that he accepted a NT$1 billion (US$32.9 million) political donation from the firm have fueled public skepticism about whether the Ma administration is at all serious about ridding the nation of companies that violate food safety.
Further adding to skepticism that the government is really tackling the problem are the following incidents: The first was when a Ting Hsin private jet flew from Taiwan to China the night before prosecutors summoned Ting Hsin senior executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) over the latest oil scandal. Many Taiwanese cannot help but find the timing suspicious, leading to speculation that there could have been paperwork or other evidence related to the food scandal onboard the jet.
Then there was the perception that Wei was seemingly being left out of the authorities’ investigations even as many of the businesses involved had their premises searched and officials convicted, as in the case of Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基) chairman Kao Cheng-li (高振利), who is serving a 12-year prison sentence. The oil adulteration scandal that Kao was jailed for erupted in October last year and saw him sentenced in December.
By contrast, the probe into Wei’s role in that scandal took a year to conclude and prosecutors finally rolled out an indictment on Tuesday charging him with fraud, forgery and food safety violations. Amid the public outcry and a slew of surveys showing high public disapproval with the government’s performance in the ongoing tainted oil controversy, Wei has been held incommunicado since Friday last week.
Politics has often been described as a sort of “performance art.” With this in mind, while it is reassuring to see the Ma government addressing public concerns, these moves are hopefully much more than some sort of political playacting, seeking only to placate public anger momentarily until the Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections are over.
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