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Second official apologizes over foreign residency

A second Cabinet official yesterday publicly apologized to Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) for possessing a foreign resident visa, but added that he had already started the process to relinquish his Filipino Special Resident Retiree Visa.

“Giving up my visa is not a sacrifice, it is an act of responsibility,” Overseas Compatriots Affairs Council Deputy Chairman Hsu Chen-jung (�?a) told reporters when approached for comment outside the legislature.

Hsu said he had not revealed that he had the visa when he was asked to serve in the administration, “because the law only required us to disclose dual nationality.”

“I believe political appointees are obligated to live in accordance with a higher moral code. I feel very sorry that I have caused such inconvenience to the premier,” he said.

Council Chairman Wu Yin-yih (吳英毅) said he respected Hsu’s decision, and added that Hsu’s loyalty to the country should not be questioned.

Hsu’s admission follows that of Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊), who said last week that it had been “inappropriate” for him to apply for and receive a US green card during his stint as ambassador to Guatemala in 2005.

Ou said he relinquished his US green card in April shortly after he was asked to serve in his current capacity.

Hsu and Ou are among a number of Cabinet members whose loyalties are under strict scrutiny by the Democratic Progressive Party for their failure to abandon their citizenship or residency rights in foreign countries.

At a separate setting, the premier said that the Cabinet would make no further comment on the foreign residency issue in the absence of solid evidence.

The Executive Yuan arranged meetings for Cabinet officials to communicate with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers today and tomorrow after the Cabinet came under fire from the KMT caucus over its handling of the green card issue and recent flooding in the south.

Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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