Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
He estimated that the money wasted through corruption every year makes up about 30 percent of the government's annual total expenditure, or about NT$510 billion.
Yesterday was the first time Chen went to the legislature to face interpellation by lawmakers since he assumed the justice minister's portfolio. Unlike some of the new Cabinet's scholars-turned-ministers, the former four-term legislator was not given much of a hard time by his former colleagues.
However, the reputed disharmony between Chen and the director of the Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau, Wang Kuang-ru (
In his policy report yesterday, Chen also stressed that his plan to create a nationwide record of every citizen's bank accounts and other assets would not inconvenience people, nor would it violate citizens' privacy -- as some have charged.
"The passage of the telecommunication monitoring law has shown that for the purpose of cracking down on crime, the public can accept a monitoring system," Chen said. "Just like telecommunication monitoring, a bank account record could only be checked with a warrant."
The ties between the ministry and its Investigation Bureau was another focus of questions from lawmakers. KMT legislator Lin Hong-tsung (
Chen clearly disagreed, but Wang, after some hesitation, said he would be glad to see it happen.
Lin asked some 20 bureau staffers who were at the session to vote "if you agree with your director." Almost all raised their hands, leaving Chen speechless.
DPP legislator Perng Shaw-jiin (彭紹瑾) asked if the alteration of the plan for a new anti-corruption administration was due to the Investigation Bureau's reluctance to have some of its departments merged into the new institution.
Chen denied the resistance had affected the plan.
"The final agreement that the bureau's anti-corruption department would not be merged into the new administration was not due to such resistance. Instead, the overriding concern was what would be the best for the anti-corruption effort." Chen said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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