Cabinet gets tougher on corruption

In a bid to eradicate corruption, the Executive Yuan yesterday approved draft amendments to the Statute for the Punishment of Corruption (貪污治罪條例), which would make those who bribe foreign public servants subject to fines or jail terms.

The bill will be sent to the Legislative Yuan for further review and final approval.

Addressing a press conference held after the weekly closed-door Cabinet affairs meeting yesterday morning, Cabinet spokesman Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢) said that it is important to amend the statute since neither the Criminal Code nor the statute covers those bribing foreign government officials.

"It's the government's priority tasks to eradicate corruption and to establish a clean government," Chuang said. "To prevent those who tarnish the nation's international image by unscrupulously bribing foreign public servants or engaging in commercial activities for personal gain. It's important to punish those engaging in such acts."

It is a global trend to treat corruption as a criminal act, Chuang said.

"Twenty-nine out of the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] who signed the convention on combating the bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions in 1997 have enacted laws to punish those who try to bribe foreign public servants," Chuang said.

With the amendments to the statute, Chuang said, the government hopes to improve Taiwan's international image.

"A survey conducted by the Transparency International in 1999 put the transparency of Taiwan's government at 17 among the world's 19 most important export countries," he said. "The corruption index made available by the same organization this year also ranks Taiwan in 19th place out of 21 nations analyzed."

When the legislature's Legal Committee asked Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) in May about his views on Taiwan's low ranking, he said that the nation's campaign against corruption has been good and that it would be wrong for "outsiders" to believe that the nation has a serious corruption problem.

He also pointed out that if Taiwan's businesspeople are paying bribes in other countries, "frankly, it is none of the government's business."

According to the draft amendments, which are a reinvention of Hong Kong's Prevention of Bribery Rule introduced during the days of British colonial rule, those who bribe foreign public servants would be subject to a sentence of between one and seven years, or a fine of up to NT$3 million.

Foreign public servants would include those in China, Hong Kong or Macau.

To encourage offenders to surrender themselves to authorities, violators who turn themselves in within one year after the law takes effect would not be subject to prosecution.

Within the first year the law is in effect, people who made less than NT$50,000 as a result of bribes they paid will also not face prosecution.