Part of a food aid shipment to Haiti in February contained rice "unfit even for animal consumption," a Council of Agriculture official said yesterday.
The problem came to light when Haitian officials complained about the subpar rice to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in turn informed the council on May 24, said Tsao Shao-hwei (
Tsao said the case has been turned over to the police, who suspect malfeasance on the part of factory owners.
Council officials said the poor rice had been traced to a processing plant in Yunlin County.
The ten 50kg bags that were found to contain poor-quality rice in the 420-tonne shipment were from the Chun-ku Rice Processing Plant.
The plant said that substandard rice had been mixed with good rice by mistake because its foreign laborers had misunderstood instructions that were not given in their mother tongue.
Tsao voiced skepticism at that explanation.
"The rice the factory attempted to pass off as acceptable quality is so poor that it was immediately obvious upon visual inspection -- the rice had turned yellow and black," Tsao told reporters yesterday. "It would be hard for the factory to pass this off as a mistake."
High-quality unprocessed rice was delivered by the AFA to the plant to process before being shipped to Haiti.
"We strongly suspect they sold some of the good rice, substituted poor-quality rice for part of the shipment and pocketed the profit," Tsao said.
"Our contract with the plant ended on June 5. The results of the police investigation will decide whether plant officials will be found criminally culpable," he said.
Tsao said that Taiwan first started providing rice as foreign aid in 2002. The amount of rice donated varies from year to year depending on the level of demand from famine-stricken countries and has ranged from 20,000 tonnes to more than 60,000 tonnes per year.
Ministry spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (
"We believe that this is an isolated case ... but we will pay attention to prevent it from happening again," she said.
Additional reporting by Jewel Huang
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) today released images of the military tracking China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) movements during the latest round of Chinese drills around Taiwan. The PLA began "Justice Mission 2025" drills today, carrying out live-fire drills, simulated strikes on land and maritime targets, and exercises to blockade the nation's main ports. The exercises are to continue tomorrow, with the PLA announcing sea and air space restrictions for five zones around Taiwan for 10 hours starting from 8:30am. The ministry today released images showing a Chinese J-16 fighter jet tracked by a F-16V Block 20 jet and the
RSS