The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday accused Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) of forging trip reports for her overseas travels.
Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), director of DPP’s Department of Culture and Information, told a press conference yesterday that Kuang’s husband, Wu Chun-li (吳俊立) — a former Taitung County commissioner and currently a councilor to the Taitung County Government — had gone on a trip to Thailand with county government officials in June last year. Three months later, Kuang led another group on another visit there.
Citing government officials’ public trip reports released by the Cabinet’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Cheng said that “while the names of the delegation members, the schedules and dates differed in the two Thailand trips, the content of the two reports as well as the amount asked for reimbursement were almost identical.”
Kuang only submitted the report so she could apply for reimbursement from public coffers, Cheng said.
The Ministry of Audit’s Taitung branch said yesterday it would look into the matter and deny approval of the reimbursements if her travel report was found to have been fabricated.
Kuang has come under fire from politicians across party lines for taking 10 township heads on a 13-day trip to Europe late last month, despite forecasts that Typhoon Fung-wong was heading for Taiwan and would hit from the east coast.
Kuang has also been accused of wasting public funds on several trips abroad. The frequency of her overseas trips has also raised many eyebrows. DPP legislators said Kuang has spent more than NT$10 million (US$325,000) on overseas trips since she assumed her position a little more than two years ago.
She has also been criticized for turning the county’s promotional brochures into her own portfolio, in which she poses in different outfits.
Following growing criticism from local residents and the public, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) has asked the party’s Taitung branch to look into the matter and send its findings to the committee for further investigation.
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
Taiwan’s armed forces have established response protocols for a wide range of sudden contingencies, including the “Wan Chun Plan” to protect the head of state, the Ministry of Defense (MND) said today. After US President Donald Trump on Saturday launched a series of airstrikes in Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, concerns have been raised as to whether China would launch a similar “decapitation strike” on Taiwan. The armed forces regularly coordinate with relevant agencies and practice drills to ensure preparedness for a wide range of scenarios, Vice Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) told reporters before a
EVA Airways on Saturday said that it had suspended a pilot and opened an investigation after he allegedly lost his temper and punched the first officer several times as their plane was taxiing before takeoff at Los Angeles International Airport. According to a report published on Thursday by The Reporter, the incident occurred after the flight’s Malaysian first officer tried to warn the Taiwanese pilot, surnamed Wen (文), that he was taxiing faster than the speed limit of 30 knots (55.6kph). After alerting the pilot several times without response, the first officer manually applied the brakes in accordance with standard operating
Japanese Councilor Hei Seki (石平) on Wednesday said that he plans to visit Taiwan, saying that would “prove that Taiwan is an independent country and does not belong to China.” Seki, a member of the Japan Innovation Party, was born in Chengdu in China’s Sichuan Province and became a naturalized Japanese in 2007. He was elected to the House of Concilors last year. His views on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — espoused in a series of books on politics and history — prompted Beijing to sanction him, including barring Seki from traveling to China. Seki wrote on X that he intends
RSS