The Forestry Bureau will work with law enforcement authorities to get to the bottom of an alleged corruption scandal involving three bureau officials and various businessmen, bureau -Director-General Yen Jen-teh (顏仁德) said on Friday.
According to the results of an initial investigation, the trio, including specialist Tung Chang-chih (董章治), helped forestation companies secure about NT$300 million (US$10.14 million) per year in projects on the nation’s outlying isles.
In return, the officials are alleged to have received kickbacks estimated at between NT$80 million and NT$100 million each year, as well as free travel tickets, accommodation and entertainment.
It is estimated that since the bureau began promoting forestation efforts on outlying isles in 1992, the amount of illegal profits that has found its way into the pockets of officials and businessmen could be as high as NT$1 billion.
Tung and the two other bureau officials — technicians Tsai Kuang-chin (蔡光進) and Hsu Nai-hui (許乃輝) — along with seven forestation operators have been held incommunicado by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office, while two other operators have been released on NT$20,000 and NT$40,000 bail, according to reports.
On the possibility that higher-ranking bureau officials might also be involved in the scandal, Yen said: “The bureau will work with investigators to get to the bottom of the case.”
Yen said that although there were more than 1,000 forestation operators in the country, it is very difficult to grow a forest on the islands, so the bureau only invites operators that have previously taken part in forestation projects worth more than NT$5 million to join the bidding.
This restriction means that only 44 companies are eligible, Yen said, adding that in the end, only about 20 companies actually join the bidding for contracts.
Yen vowed to improve the system by ensuring that those in charge of monitoring projects are rotated so they have less opportunity to develop unhealthy relations with contractors, and by double-checking when the forestation projects are completed to ensure that they have been carried out properly.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater