KMT legislative caucus ends its boycott of bill for anti-graft agency

The KMT legislative caucus agreed yesterday not to block a bill calling for the establishment of an anti-corruption agency. But they insisted that the unit be set up under the Control Yuan instead of the Ministry of Justice, as was proposed by the Cabinet.

The legislature is to place the bill on its calendar when its Procedure Committee meets on April 20.

The main opposition party, whose lawmakers have stalled the review of the bill for the past six months, passed a resolution yesterday afternoon that said it would suspend its boycott to counter charges the KMT is against clean politics and condones "black gold."

KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) urged his colleagues to back the legislation as a show of the party's commitment to reform.

He noted that the caucus must not continue resisting the bill if the party is serious about reclaiming power from the DPP in three years.

The Ministry of Justice has argued that an anti-corruption agency is necessary for the country to weed out dishonest officials, although most government agencies have a department serving exactly that purpose already.

While giving its green light to the proposal, the KMT caucus insisted on drawing up its own bill granting the Control Yuan the authority to oversee the operation of the anti-corruption unit.

Under this arrangement, the nation's watchdog body can cast off its image of being a paper tiger, KMT legislative leader Cheng Yung-chin (鄭永金) pointed out.

He emphasized that caution, rather than selfish motives, had led his party to boycott the legislation.

His colleague Chao Erh-chung (曹爾忠) reiterated that it was pointless to create another anti-corruption unit under the justice ministry, which already has numerous prosecutors and investigators at its disposal.

He contended that it was more pressing for existing law enforcers to improve their efficiency, adding that otherwise, any planned agency would only add to the burden on the nation's finances, which are already stretched to the breaking point.

In related news, the People First Party (PFP) caucus also came up with its own bill regarding the establishment of an anti-corruption body.

The PFP's bill, however, differs in that it stipulates that the agency should take orders directly from the Cabinet, not the justice ministry.

PFP Legislator Chou His-wei (周錫偉) said that it is important for the agency to be spared from any political influence to be effective.

To that end, he argued that the proposed agency should be treated as an equal to all ministries, as in Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption and Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.