The Executive Yuan’s Food Safety Office was officially launched yesterday.
The agency is to be supervised by newly appointed Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌), who was sworn in yesterday, and has a prosecutor from the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office stationed to streamline communications with investigators on food safety.
The office is a standing body with between 20 and 25 full-time staff members, who have been transferred from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Justice and the Council of Agriculture, according to the Executive Yuan.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Five people from a team tasked with building a food cloud within the Executive Yuan’s Board of Science and Technology have also been dispatched to support the new office.
Four teams — responsible for inspections and the enforcement of food safety regulations; running an information platform; management and coordination; and emergency-response and communication respectively — have been set up at the office.
Chiang is to supervise the operation of the office, while Food and Drug Administration Risk Management Director Tsai Shu-chen (蔡淑貞) has been appointed office deputy director (currently acting director), and Tsai Meng-lun (蔡孟倫), an adviser at the Executive Yuan’s Department of the Interior, Health, Welfare and Labor, is to serve as another deputy director.
“There are [various ministries and government agencies] on the front line battling food-related violations, but in the rear, you need something like a General Staff Headquarters, in charge of integration, coordination and command, and the Food Safety Office is exactly it,” Chiang said.
Prosecutor Tseng Chiun-che (曾俊哲) of the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office is to be the office-stationed prosecutor for the coordination of food inspections carried out by district prosecutors’ offices. Tseng was commended in 2012 for his investigation of a case involving plasticizer-tainted beverages.
“The Ministry of Health and Welfare, Council of Agriculture and many agencies are involved in the food-safety safeguarding effort, but in the end, you need the Ministry of Justice and prosecutors to conduct investigations. So if the office has [a prosecutor] stationed in it, the communication between the prosecution and investigation units and us will be smoother. And as inspection is key to [food safety], we will need their help for that as well,” Chiang said.
Later yesterday at a handover ceremony where he assumed office as health minister, Chiang pledged to restore the nation’s tarnished reputation for food and the public’s faith in the food industry.
“I have to admit that it is a tremendous challenge to take the helm of the ministry at a time when the nation has been repeatedly battered by a string of food scares, which have not only shaken people’s confidence in the nation’s food safety, but also crippled our booming food industry and damaged our international image as the paradise of delicacies,” Chiang said.
Chiang said food safety is a complex issue that requires the concerted efforts of all relevant government agencies, rather than the ministry’s alone, which is the main reason behind the Executive Yuan founding the inter-ministerial Food Safety Office yesterday.
Although food safety is undoubtedly the new minister’s top priority, he said there are many more issues that demand his attention, ranging from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and a dengue fever outbreak in the south to the second-generation National Health Insurance system and the establishment of a sustainable long-term healthcare system.
As for some people’s doubts about his qualifications to lead the ministry, given his lack of a medical background, Chiang said: “No one in the world is born omnipotent. At least I have a great team of experts behind me.”
FIREPOWER: On top of the torpedoes, the military would procure Kestrel II anti-tank weapons systems to replace aging license-produced M72 LAW launchers Taiwan is to receive US-made Mark 48 torpedoes and training simulators over the next three years, following delays that hampered the navy’s operational readiness, the Ministry of National Defense’s latest budget proposal showed. The navy next year would acquire four training simulator systems for the torpedoes and take receipt of 14 torpedoes in 2027 and 10 torpedoes in 2028, the ministry said in its budget for the next fiscal year. The torpedoes would almost certainly be utilized in the navy’s two upgraded Chien Lung-class submarines and the indigenously developed Hai Kun, should the attack sub successfully reach operational status. US President Donald Trump
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
ALL QUIET: The Philippine foreign secretary told senators she would not respond to questions about whether Lin Chia-lung was in the country The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday confirmed that a business delegation is visiting the Philippines, but declined to say whether Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) is part of the group, as Philippine lawmakers raised questions over Lin’s reported visit. The group is being led by Deputy Minister of Agriculture Huang Chao-chin (黃昭欽), Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association (CIECA) chairman Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) and US-Taiwan Business Council (USTBC) vice president Lotta Danielsson, the ministry said in a statement. However, sources speaking on condition of anonymity said that Lin is leading the delegation of 70 people. Filinvest New Clark City Innovation Park
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei