CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) chairman Derek Chen (陳金德) yesterday tendered his resignation amid mounting criticism over a nationwide blackout on Tuesday.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) has approved Chen’s resignation, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said last night.
Chen’s decision follows Lee Chih-kung’s (李世光) resignation as minister of economic affairs on Tuesday, when a massive blackout hit businesses and households nationwide.
Photo: CNA
The outage was caused by human error during the replacement of power supply system components at a natural gas power plant in Taoyuan’s Datan Township (大潭).
“I tendered my verbal resignation to the premier on Wednesday, but he asked me to clear out doubts [about the incident] before leaving,” Chen told a media conference in Taipei, referring to questions whether CPC or its contractor Lumax International Corp (巨路) was responsible for the power disruption.
Chen said the state-owned refiner had investigated the blackout and shared its findings with the Cabinet earlier this week, as well as offered suggestions for reform.
“As so many people were affected by the incident, I wanted to extend CPC’s deepest apologies to the public and, as the chairman, I have to accept responsibility,” Chen said.
He denied that he was stepping down because of political interference or pressure from the Cabinet.
He also declined to talk about possible candidates for the position, saying he should not interfere with the company’s future affairs.
On Thursday, Chen said that CPC would seek to terminate its contracts with Lumax in the near term.
He said that CPC’s relationship with its contractors has been “too good” for too long, which resulted in flawed maintenance work.
However, at yesterday’s conference CPC spokeswoman Ann Bih (畢淑蒨) said CPC would first discuss contract terms with Lumax to determine responsibility in the blackout.
CPC vice president J.Z. Fang (方振仁), who is in charge of the company’s industrial safety department, announced the results of the company’s investigation into the incident, which he said confirmed what CPC had said earlier.
CPC and Lumax engineers were replacing power supply equipment for a control system at the Datan Natural Gas Power Plant on Tuesday, but forgot to switch the system from automatic to manual mode before starting the work, according to the findings of the 10-member investigation team.
Fang said the misstep caused two valves to automatically close, shutting off gas supplies to six generators, he said.
CPC has not yet made a decision on disciplinary measures, Fang said, declining to provide a timetable.
Additional reporting by Reuters
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS