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.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
RSS