Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) approved Minister of Labor Pan Shih-wei’s (潘世偉) resignation last night, hours after Pan offered to step down during an early-morning telephone call to Jiang amid rumors of an extramarital affair.
Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said Jiang spoke again by phone to Pan in the afternoon and approved his resignation in the evening.
Deputy Minister of Labor Hau Feng-ming (郝鳳鳴) will take over for Pan until a new minister is appointed, Sun said.
Photo: CNA
Pan’s resignation came just a day after Next Magazine reported that he had made three nighttime visits to his female secretary in a week earlier this month.
In its latest issue, the Chinese-language magazine said Pan had also taken his secretary on official foreign visits with business-class airline tickets that had been paid for with government funds.
Pan had been quick on Wednesday to refute the accusation of an affair, while his secretary issued a statement saying she would take legal action against the magazine.
Yesterday afternoon it appeared to be business as usual for the 58-year-old Pan, who had served as head of the Council of Labor Affairs since October 2012 and oversaw its transformation into the ministry earlier this year.
The ministry yesterday made public a recording made by Pan’s wife, who is on a vacation in France with their son, in which she said she was surprised to hear of his resignation and that she fully trusts him.
“[Pan] always tells me where he goes and I know about his meetings with the secretary. I know [her] personally as well,” his wife said.
The National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories (全國關廠工人連線), who had demanded that Pan step down over his handling of several cases concerning the exploitation of workers and what it says are deteriorating working conditions, criticized Pan’s decision.
“Politicians are supposed to step down for bad policies,” not for their deeds in the private sphere, the group said in a Facebook post.
Pan is the second public official to resign over an alleged affair exposed by Next Magazine in the past three months. It published a story about former minister without portfolio Chen Shi-shuenn (陳希舜) in April that claimed the married Chen had made several visits to a female professor’s residence in 10 days.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and CNA
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
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
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
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
RSS