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Legislative speaker denies MOFA interference in TFD

“How could this be possible? The Minister of Foreign Affairs [Francisco Ou] would not dare to interfere in the speaker’s business ... he was only checking if the foundation needed to make a personnel reshuffle.”

— Wang Jin-pyng, legislative speaker

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who also serves as chairman of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD), yesterday denied a media report that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) had attempted to interfere in the non-governmental foundation’s affairs.

“How could this be possible?” Wang said. “The Minister of Foreign Affairs [Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊)] would not dare to interfere in the speaker’s business ... he was only checking if the foundation needed to make a personnel reshuffle.”

Wang said he had turned down Ou’s enquiry about a reshuffle.

“I dismissed the need [to reshuffle personnel]. We are [an] impartial and independent [organization] and he completely respected us,” Wang said.

Wang was responding to a Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) story yesterday quoting Wang as saying that Ou mentioned a personnel reshuffle to him but that Wang had rejected the suggestion.

The story cited anonymous sources as saying that Ou hoped to replace the foundation’s chief executive officer and three deputy executive officers.

Wang yesterday said that although the foundation is funded by MOFA, it is non-partisan.

Its role is to promote Taiwan’s democracy and help the world understand the nation’s democratic system, he said, adding it had recently hired consultants including two former ministers of foreign affairs, James Huang (黃志芳) and Mark Chen (陳唐山).

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has been accused of attempting to interfere in several organizations.

Last week, a group of board members at Radio Taiwan International resigned after accusing the Government Information Office (GIO) of trying to prevent the radio station from criticizing China — an accusation GIO Minister Vanessa Shih (史亞平) denied.


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