A number of top politicians in southern Taiwan were indicted on corruption and other charges by Tainan prosecutors on Friday night, including the speaker and vice speaker of the Tainan City Council and the speaker of the Tainan County Council.
"A total of 68 defendants were indicted in three cases," said Fan Wen-hao (
Tainan City Council Speaker Huang Yu-wen (黃郁文) and Vice-Speaker Wong Chow-cheng (翁朝正) were indicted for bribery, blackmail and coercion.
Prosecutors recommended the court sentence Huang to 17 years in prison and fine him NT$100 million (US$ 2.9 million).
They have asked for a 12-year term and NT$30 million for Wong.
Prosecutors allege that Huang and Wong received more than NT$100 million from the Yiching Construction Co in order to arrange for the firm to win a construction job in the Heshuenliao (何順寮) agricultural area.
They said that Huang and Wong, as members of their council's construction committee, were responsible for reducing the budget of the Heshuenliao project from NT$240 million to NT$190 million and that the two men had orchestrated requirements on materials and other details to the Yiching's advantage.
Former Yunlin County commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味), National Federation of Construction chairman Pan Chun-jung (潘俊榮), and Tainan County Councilor Lee Chuan-fu (李全富) were indicted on forgery charges for allegedly trying to arrange for other companies to be selected in the Heshuenliao tender process. Prosecutors have asked for 28-month jail terms for all three.
Tainan County Council Speaker Wu Chien-bao (吳健保) and Councilor Lee Chuan-fu, meanwhile, have been indicted on bribery and theft for their alleged involvement in illegal quarrying.
The prosecution has recommended a four-years-and-two-month sentence for Wu and five years for Lee.
The prosecutors allege that Wu and Lee illegally quarried sand from the Tsengwen River (
The prosecutors said Wu ran the Tainan-based Fu-hsin Co, which won a public bid in March last year to dredge the river's channel.
They said the contract called for the company to quarry silt from the river and deepen its channel to 4m. However, Fu-hsin deepened the channel to 13m, and then sold the dredged sand to construction companies while partially filling the channel with earth from the riverbank. The prosecutors said illegal quarrying had severely damaged the environment and endangered bridges along the river.
They said Lee had cooperated with Wu on the sand scam.
Tainan City Council Vice Speaker Tseng Shun-liang (
Prosecutors said Tseng also ran an illegal gambling operation that bet on professional baseball games.
Prosecutors have recommended a three-years-and-six-months term for Tseng.
Lee and Wu are both members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). All of the other politicians were elected as independents.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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