A Taiwanese diplomat has told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he would seek political asylum in South Africa rather than pay a debt of US$37,000 owed by Taiwanese nationals to a local hotel out of his own pocket, the ministry said yesterday.
Ministry spokesperson James Chang (章計平) confirmed the event reported yesterday by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper).
“He might have come up with the idea because he was so anxious to settle the problem, but that is as far as it went; he took it no further,” Chang said, adding the case was resolved last month.
The paper reported that the ministry demanded that Lu Ching-yang (呂清揚), first secretary at the Taipei Liaison Office in Johannesburg, repay the ministry US$37,000 before his new posting to the Republic of Kiribati took effect, or face a penalty and possible cancelation of the assignment.
Lu used public funds to cover room, board and other expenses for a Taiwanese delegation that traveled to Durban to attend the UN Climate Change Conference in December last year. However, he was not reimbursed because of a dispute between the group and the hotel.
The paper said Lu telephoned Representative to South Africa Michael Hsu (徐佩勇) at 2:30am on Jan. 23, saying he planned to seek political asylum and take his grievance to the media the next day.
Lu apparently changed his mind on the advice of Hsu and other Taiwanese officials who said that he should seek restitution through the mechanism established by the Civil Service Protection Act (公務人員保障法), the paper said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) provided details of the case to the paper, based on a government document he obtained from an official with the Ministry of the Interior’s Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Yuan-ming (楊源明) yesterday apologized for the leak of the document.
As a result of the leak, the bureau’s International Criminal Affairs Section head Ho Chao-fan (何招凡) had been transferred to a non-supervisory position and given a minor demerit, and three other officials had also been punished, Yang said.
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