The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday accused Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) of wasting public funds on several trips abroad during her term.
Kuang, currently in Italy, has come under fire for not cutting her trip short as Typhoon Fung-wong approached Taiwan to deal with potential damage caused by the storm.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) told a press conference yesterday that Kuang was leading 10 Taitung County township heads on the 13-day visit to Italy at a cost of NT$1.5 million (US$50,000) in public funds.
Kuang has made eight overseas trips in her two years and three months in office for a total cost of more than NT$10 million, Gao said.
“Kuang is wasting taxpayer money,” Gao said. “As a former flight attendant, Kuang would be better off going back to her [flight attendant] job because she really enjoys flying.”
DPP caucus whip Chang Hwa-kuan (張花冠) said that because the DPP does not control the Taitung County commissionership, people like Kuang, of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), get away with whatever they want.
“Voters should use their votes to tell Kuang in the next commissioner election whether is it alright to ignore local government work and travel abroad often,” Chang said.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) suggested amending the Disaster Prevention and Response Act (災害防救法) to punish local government heads who do not take charge of rescue work following natural disasters and measures to combat damage from disasters.
At a separate setting yesterday, KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) said he would ask all KMT local government heads to prioritize disaster relief efforts.
“As a local government head, it is important to address residents’ needs. All residents want to see a government head stay in their city or county when a storm hits the area,” Wu said.
Wu said that as a former Taoyuan County commissioner, he understood that local government heads visited foreign countries to learn about municipal developments there.
However, they should lead disaster prevention and relief efforts, he said.
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires