President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is facing sharp criticism for his decision to appoint Chou Chih-jung (周志榮) as the first head of the Agency Against Corruption (AAC), an independent anti-corruption body established on Thursday.
Critics say Chou, a prosecutor, is actively involved in politics and is unfit to lead an agency aimed at deterring civil servants, including public officials, from engaging in corrupt activities.
Chou was widely rumored to have been involved in leaking to the press information about a probe into campaign contributions given to then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) during the 2008 presidential election, in a move that critics say may have affected the election outcome.
The allegations against Hsieh later turned out to be unfounded.
“His motive for doing this was clear,” DPP lawyer Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said at a press conference yesterday. “We are concerned that a prosecutor so heavily involved in political activities would turn the new agency into a political tool.”
There has also been dissatisfaction with the appointment of Yang Shih-chin (楊石金), the former head of Taipei City’s Department of Ethics, as deputy head of the AAC.
Yang was involved in the Taipei International Flora Expo scandal last year, when local DPP councilors accused organizers and the city government of overpaying contractors by as much as 30 times market prices. The scandal saw prosecutors raid the municipal government building and arrest one official.
Prosecutors had voiced public concerns at that time that the ethics department was covering up for other civic officials connected to the controversy.
“I don’t think anybody at the time could have imagined that Yang would instead be promoted to deputy head of the AAC,” Chou said, adding that the former director-general also had a dismal record in processing public complaints.
Information compiled by the DPP shows that 481 public complaints had been given to the Taipei City Ethics Department since February 2007, but only nine were pursued in court, leading to a “efficiency rate of only 1.8 percent,” DPP spokesperson Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) yesterday said the allegations so far have not been found to be true. Chen welcomed Hsu to provide the ministry with whatever information he has.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY YANG KUO-WEN
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS