Two officials from the Ministry of National Defense (MND)-affiliated Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology were detained yesterday by the Taoyuan District Court for alleged involvement in several bidding scandals.
The officials, Chang Chi-pen (張吉本) and Yang Tsan-yu (楊璨璵), were detained on suspicion of receiving bribes from several companies to help them win tender, the Taoyuan District Prosecutor's Office said yesterday.
KICKBACKS
According to the district prosecutor's office, a businessman, whose name was not released, admitted to prosecutors that he had given the pair NT$800,000 (US$24,000) in kickbacks.
Prosecutors said they suspect other officials in the bureau were also involved in the scandal and would extend their investigations.
The two suspected officials might be charged with corruption, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the bureau has, since last year, received funds from the Executive Yuan to develop infrared tracers, fire control systems, cooling detectors and other hardware to equip domestic fighter jets.
technologies
The bureau is responsible for developing the technologies and transferring them to civil companies who produce the products for the MND's Armaments Bureau.
Prosecutors said Chang and Yang were in charge of inviting public tenders for the armament project, and they limited each tender to less than NT$1 million to avoid supervision of the Executive Yuan's Public Construction Commission. The commission does not oversee public tenders of less than NT$1 million.
Prosecutors said the two were suspected of leaking the confidential information of the tenders to certain companies, helping them to illegally win the tenders, and taking kickbacks.
Prosecutors said the companies paid the officials between NT$100,000 and NT$800,000.
On Friday, prosecutors searched the buildings of Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, offices of companies allegedlly involved in the scandal and seized "certain documents."
The two officials and nine individuals from the companies were also questioned on Friday.
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