Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) dismissed media speculation yesterday that the Cabinet was blocking an amendment to the Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Law (公職人員財產申報法) from taking effect next March.
"This is a serious distortion [of the facts]," he said while fielding questions from Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Pan Wei-kang (
Chang was referring to a story in yesterday's Chinese-language China Times which said the Cabinet had sent an official document to the Ministry of Justice last month, asking it to postpone implementing the amendment until next October.
The legislature passed the amendment -- aimed at cleaning up politics by tightening regulations on officials' assets disclosures and expanding the scope of the bill -- in March.
Once the amendment takes effect, high-level government officials, their spouses and their children would be required to declare their assets in greater detail to the Control Yuan by including jewelry, antiques, calligraphy and paintings.
The timing of the implementation is crucial because the amendment requires officials to declare their assets within two months of leaving office.
The Control Yuan decided in September that the amendment should take effect in March.
If that happened President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) would have to provide a more detailed list of their assets when Chen leaves office.
The story alleged that the Cabinet sought to delay implementation to help the first family and current Cabinet members.
"If implementation of the amendment were put off until October, current officials such as members of the Examination Yuan and board members of state-run enterprises would be able to escape the amendment's requirements," Pan said.
"The Cabinet is trying to prevent the public from knowing how much Chen and Wu actually own," she said.
Chang, however, said the law stipulates that the Cabinet, the Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan share the power to decide when to implement the amendment. He said the Cabinet agreed with a March date.
"I do not have any personal preference," he said.
Chang, however, confirmed that the Ministry of Finance had received suggestions from board members of several state-run enterprises that implementation should be delayed because they were concerned with privacy issues.
"The Cabinet was not trying to cut certain people some slack," Chang told reporters.
"If [the allegation] were true, Wu Shu-jen would not have been indicted," he said.
The first lady was indicted on corruption and forgery charges in the "state affairs" fund case.
In related developments, Chang promised yesterday to thoroughly review the amount of money government agencies spend each year on meetings and training seminars held in resorts and luxury hotels.
A Ministry of Audit report released on Monday showed the government spent NT$1.83 billion (US$56.6 million) in 2005 on such gatherings. The report said some officials had brought family members with them to such events, with the government footing the bill.
"The Cabinet places great importance on the Ministry of Audit's report," Chang said. "We are willing to make improvements if the government made mistakes."
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods