Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday called for the resignation of Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien (王建煊) after he reportedly suggested that members of the government watchdog should stop bothering government ministers.
In a meeting held on Oct. 12, Wang reflected concerns by senior government officials that meetings with Control Yuan members were taking up too much office time, according to a copy of the meeting record. He said his remarks were to be “taken into consideration.”
“The [high] number of discussions were increasing the amount of pressure on public servants and inconveniencing [them],” he said.
DPP lawmakers said yesterday that Wang’s actions clearly violated the government’s separation of powers. The government watchdog was expected to be independent and not act to protect government agencies, the lawmakers said.
“He’s basically illegally using his influence to infringe on the monitoring rights of individual members,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. “It’s an extremely big scandal.”
The government also needed to find out who made those recommendations to the Control Yuan president, she added. That person’s relationship with Wang, Kuan said, should also come under investigation by Control Yuan members.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said that if Wang’s remarks were carried out, it would amount to dereliction of duty by the Control Yuan as their purpose was to probe possible cases of wrongdoings by government officials.
“The Control Yuan should not be shooting itself in the foot,” he said.
Speaking about other Control Yuan members, he added they “should not listen to or abide by Wang’s remarks.”
This is not the first time that the blunder-prone Control Yuan president’s remarks have generated controversy.
In August he was criticized after using office hours to promote his new book on sexual relations within a marriage and religious belief. The press conference reportedly included graphic descriptions of sexual positions and other antics.
He also drew fire in January after he implied that ethnic Han people were smarter than Aborigines, sparking outrage from Aboriginal activists.
The previous month he said that many civil servants are “idiots” who could only talk about problems but not resolve them.
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