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.”
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS