Five former ministers under the previous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration were indicted by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office yesterday on charges of misusing funds.
They are former justice minister Morley Shih (施茂林), former minister of the interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋), former education minister Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝), former minister of examinations Lin Chia-cheng (林嘉誠) and former minister of the civil service Chu Wu-hsien (朱武獻).
Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南), a spokesman for the Supreme Prosecutors Office’s Special Investigation Panel, said that a subordinate to Tu, two subordinates to Shih and another to Lee were also indicted on charges of collecting fraudulent receipts for the ministers.
Chen said the five former ministers were suspected of using fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements from their special allowance funds in violation of the Criminal Code.
Prosecutors alleged that Tu used a number of fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements amounting to NT$360,000 (US$12,000), Shih NT$180,000, Lee NT$40,000, Lin NT$610,000 and Chu NT$65,000.
Chen said prosecutors were still investigating officials from the previous Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government for their use of discretionary funds, among them then premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and then vice premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄). Siew is now the vice president and Liu the premier.
The KMT legislative caucus last May filed a suit with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, asking the prosecutors to investigate ministers in the DPP government’s use of discretionary funds.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office last September indicted former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), former DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun and former National Security Council secretary-general Mark Chen (陳唐山) on suspicion of misusing their special allowance funds.
Lu, Yu and Chen were charged with corruption and forgery. Their cases are pending in the Taipei District Court.
At a press conference yesterday, DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said the prosecutors only chose to indict former DPP officials, claiming political considerations were involved in the investigation.
“Prosecutors investigate green officials and avoid those who are blue,” Cheng said, calling on justice authorities and the legislature to swiftly provide a regulation on discretionary fund to solve the controversy “because in the past it has been an unwritten rule that officials have flexibility when spending their special allowance fund.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS