Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) yesterday said it should be common sense for civil servants to keep all government documents they handle confidential, in a move to dismiss the Pingtung County Government’s “setting up” accusations.
“The Civil Servant Work Act (公務人員服務法) requires civil servants to hold in strict confidence official documents that are of interest to corporations. This should be common sense,” Chiang told a news conference in Taipei.
Chiang made the remarks one day after Pingtung County Deputy Commissioner Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) accused the Ministry of Health and Welfare of setting up the Democratic Progressive Party-ruled county government in an alleged leak of classified documents to Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), which lies at the center of the nation’s latest cooking oil scandal.
Chung attributed what he called an “unintentional move” by the county government’s technical specialist Tsai Ching-jung (蔡青蓉) to fax a sensitive document it received from the agency on Oct. 9 to Ting Hsin to the administration’s failure to mark the file “classified.”
Chung based his allegations on the fact that the same documents mailed to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-ruled Changhua County Government were designated as confidential.
The document urged Changhua’s and Pingtung’s health bureaus to inspect Ting Hsin’s cooking oil factory as soon as possible, citing a telegram from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Oct. 9 stating that the oil products Ting Hsin had bought from Vietnamese manufacturer Dai Hanh Phuc Co (大幸福公司) were only intended for animal feed.
Chiang said Tsai’s handling of the document seemed “unthinkable,” because if she intended only to make sure someone was at Ting Hsin’s factory when the bureau inspected the site on the Double Ten National Day holiday, she should have simply notified the company of the inspection, rather than sending it government documents.
“Tsai’s alleged leak of classified documents could have had a profound impact on inspectors’ probe into Ting Hsin’s oil products. While I feel sympathetic to Tsai’s situation, I hope she can stay strong in the face of a judicial investigation into her alleged transgression,” Chiang said.
Chiang said that upon receipt of the confirmation, the FDA immediately suspended imports of lard and beef tallow from Vietnam and sent a total of four e-mails to relevant agencies that evening urging them to inspect Ting Hsin’s company headquarters and factory in Changhua and seal all potentially affected products the next day.
“The first e-mail was sent unencrypted at 5:48pm to the FDA’s Central and Southern Centers for Regional Administration and a carbon copy was sent to the Changhua County Government’s health inspectors,” Chiang said.
Chiang said the next three e-mails were sent encrypted to the agency’s north, central and southern centers, as well as the Changhua county government, at 8:04pm, 8:48pm and 9pm, respectively, to update them on the changes made to the document.
The southern center then forwarded the first e-mail to the director and responsible officials at Pingtung County Government’s Public Health Bureau at 8:38pm, before doing it again at 8:42pm after the latter failed to receive the message, Chiang said.
“The southern center did not forward the other three e-mails to Pingtung’s health bureau, because it was rather late at night and they contained the same information as the first e-mail except for the enclosed document data,” Chiang said.
Chiang added that the reason all four e-mails were sent to the Changhua government was because Ting Hsin’s company was based in Changhua and that Pingtung’s health bureau was only assisting in the investigation.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he