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Space center chief held in corruption investigation

Investigators yesterday detained the head of the nation's budding space program amid allegations that funds were spent illegally in seeking to acquire a satellite from Canada, a prosecutor said.

Lance Wu (吳作樂), director general of the state-funded National Space Organization (NSPO), was detained after officials questioned him at NSPO headquarters on suspicion of "passing favors" to businesspeople brokering the deal with Vancouver-based contractor MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), prosecutor Lin Hui-yin said.

"We suspect that the program was over budgeted" among other irregularities, Lin said.

A Taiwanese dealer for MDA named Chen Hsia-lin (陳遐林) was questioned but not detained, she said.

The ARGO Satellite was a core program at the space center, which was established in 2003 to develop Taiwan's space program.

The center awarded MDA a NT$900 million (US$27 million) contract to build the satellite and accompanying launching rocket in 2005.

However, it was forced to cancel it late last year because the Canadian firm failed to obtain an export license from authorities.

The Chinese-language China Times yesterday reported that MDA had received full payment from the space center, and only returned the money after legislators in Taiwan began looking into the deal. The paper quoted unidentified investigators.

The report also said that after the program was halted, the space center continued to honor an NT$649 million contract to import related satellite components from an Italian supplier.
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