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
TAIWAN IS TAIWAN: US Representative Tom Tiffany said the amendment was not controversial, as ‘Taiwan is not — nor has it ever been — part of Communist China’ The US House of Representatives on Friday passed an amendment banning the US Department of Defense from creating, buying or displaying any map that shows Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The “Honest Maps” amendment was approved in a voice vote on Friday as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for the 2026 fiscal year. The amendment prohibits using any funds from the act to create, buy or display maps that show Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Wuciou (烏坵), Green Island (綠島) or Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) as part of the PRC. The act includes US$831.5 billion in
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
Taiwan is hosting the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) for the first time, welcoming more than 400 young linguists from 43 nations to National Taiwan University (NTU). Deputy Minister of Education Chu Chun-chang (朱俊彰) said at the opening ceremony yesterday that language passes down knowledge and culture, and influences the way humankind thinks and understands the world. Taiwan is a multicultural and multilingual nation, with Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka, 16 indigenous languages and Taiwan Sign Language all used, Chu said. In addition, Taiwan promotes multilingual education, emphasizes the cultural significance of languages and supports the international mother language movement, he said. Taiwan has long participated
Taiwan must invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to keep abreast of the next technological leap toward automation, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at the luanch ceremony of Taiwan AI and Robots Alliance yesterday. The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution centered on AI and robotics, which would likely lead to a thorough transformation of human society, she told an event marking the establishment of a national AI and robotics alliance in Taipei. The arrival of the next industrial revolution could be a matter of years, she said. The pace of automation in the global economy can
RSS