Prosecutors and law enforcement agents yesterday raided several offices and residences in northern Taiwan, and summoned Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) and Construction and Planning Agency (CPA) Chief Secretary Hung Chia-hung (洪嘉宏) for questioning over allegations of bribery involving several public construction projects.
Headed by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and investigation units from the Agency Against Corruption under the Ministry of Justice, the authorities gathered evidence from 11 locations in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan.
Chao and Hung were among the 11 people, including six defendants and five witnesses, summoned for questioning, first at the Agency Against Corruption, then at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last night.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Hung is suspected of accepting more than NT$10 million (US$304,860) in bribes from Farglory executives to secure bids on public construction projects between November 2013 and May last year. Hung was a section chief at the time at the CPA’s urban and rural development division.
The investigation centers on a number of urban renewal projects and the reconstruction of military dependents’ villages and neighborhoods in Hsinchu County, Taichung and Tainan.
The Ministry of National Defense’s Political Warfare Bureau had authorized the CPA to handle the planning, administration and public tender of the projects.
At press time last night, Chao, Hung and others were still being questioned by prosecutors, along with former Farglory deputy chairman Wei Chun-hsiung (魏春雄) and Hung’s wife.
Yesterday’s judicial probe was yet another alleged scandal involving Chao and Farglory.
Chao was accused of paying Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文), a former CPA director-general and former Taoyuan County deputy commissioner, NT$20 million to help the firm secure bids for public housing projects in then-Taoyuan County.
Yeh was found guilty by the Taipei District Court on corruption charges and received a 19-year prison term in March, while Chao was given four-and-a-half years.
Yeh was also required to pay a fine of NT$33.17 million, while Chao had to pay a NT$900,000 fine.
The CPA is tasked with supervising the planning and construction of urban renewal and new city division programs, public housing projects, urban roads, city parks, water supplies and sewage.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft