The Executive Yuan is planning to incorporate the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) into an Executive Yuan secretariat, Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄), who concurrently serves as CPC minister, said on Monday.
Chiu said Control Yuan members who visited the CPC for an inspection were satisfied with the performance and function of the CPC, which receives an annual budget of just NT$100 million (US$3.3 million), a fragment of the annual budget.
Chiu said he proposed subsuming the CPC to the level of a section under the Executive Yuan, but the Control Yuan members expressed a preference for the commission to remain independent of the Cabinet.
If the organization were to be simplified, Chiu said, the CPC would be directly under the Cabinet and able to work more efficiently. He added that he would consult further on the issue with the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, which performs policy planning, evaluation, coordination and integration functions.
Control Yuan members also expressed satisfaction with the way the CPC dealt with a recent incident involving Dell Inc, as well as a recent tainted cooking oil scandal.
The CPC pressured Dell’s Taiwan operation to come up with a satisfactory solution in response to a glitch that occurred when online shoppers took advantage of an error that saw the company offering laptops at a 75 percent discount. Dell canceled the offer as soon as the error was detected and provided coupons for those who had already placed orders, the value of which the company increased a few days later after an outcry by disappointed shoppers and intervention by the CPC.
In the other incident, cooking oil containing high amounts of arsenic was found at two McDonald’s outlets and one Domino’s Pizza store, all in Taipei County. The CPC warned fast food chains that they would face fines if subsequent tests showed no improvement. The case is currently in the courts.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
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The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
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