Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday accused Chiayi County Commissioner Helen Chang (張花冠) of abuse of public funds and resources to campaign for Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in the presidential election.
At a press conference, several KMT lawmakers displayed photographs to back up their allegations.
The photos, provided by Lee Kuo-sheng (李國勝), the KMT’s Chiayi council caucus whip, showed 84 boxes of Tsai campaign merchandise, including clothes, hats, glasses and T-shirts, in a storage room on the third floor of the county government building.
Lee said he made an unexpected inspection of the room after he was tipped off by an informant.
He added that he was not allowed to enter the room until he threatened to mobilize supporters and report the matter to police.
Chiayi County Councilor Yen Tsai Hsu-huei (顏蔡淑惠) of the KMT added that the county government also spent NT$90,000 on a Tsai campaign song.
KMT Legislator Wong Chung-chun (翁重鈞), who is seeking re-election against DPP legislative candidate Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) in Chiayi County, said that the “Little Ing lunch boxes” used to raise campaign funds when Tsai held a campaign event on Oct. 7 in the county were prepared by staffers of the county government’s cafeteria.
Wong said the staffers started to work in the kitchen at 3pm that afternoon.
The KMT caucus said it had referred the case to the Control Yuan for investigation.
Following the KMT caucus’ press conference, Chang released a statement saying that it was “extremely inappropriate” that the campaign merchandise had been stored in the county government building.
Chang said she had already offered an apology when she was questioned by county councilors at a question-and-answer session earlier yesterday.
She said the problem occurred because some government employees lacked sufficient understanding of rules regarding administrative neutrality and that the concerned parties would be severely punished.
Chang said she has ordered that the items be removed and would refer the case to the county government’s ethics office for investigation.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS