The Control Yuan yesterday impeached one incumbent and two former officials at Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), as well as a former Ministry of Economic Affairs official, for mismanagement that caused mammoth debts at the state-owned utility.
Four Control Yuan members, led by Liu Yuh-san (劉玉山), launched a probe into Taipower management in April in response to a public outcry over increases in electricity prices. The probe focused on Taipower policies to purchase electricity from businesses using cogeneration systems and from independent power producers.
Control Yuan members impeached former Taipower chairman Edward Chen (陳貴明), former Taipower president Tu Cheng-yi (涂正義), Taipower president Lee Han-shen (李漢申) and former Bureau of Energy director Yeh Huey-ching (葉惠青) for “dereliction of duty” involving “severe irregularities.”
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The Control Yuan meeting approved the impeachment of the four officials and referred them to the judiciary to face possible judicial responsibility for “irregularities” and “failing to safeguard the interests of the company.”
According to the probe, the trio of Taipower officials failed to renew contracts for the procurement of electricity with nine independent power producers in accordance with changes in the nation’s interest rates as stipulated in their long-term contracts, resulting in an extra cost of NT$5.9 billion (US$197 million).
The Control Yuan said irregularities between Taipower and the private power producers included Taipower purchasing electricity from the firms at a higher price than its own electricity generation cost, when its power reserve capacity was already well above stipulated reserves.
Taipower officials often quit or retire only to take posts at private power providers that sell electricity back to Taipower, leaving much room for irregularities, Control Yuan member Yeh Yao-peng (葉耀鵬) said.
Yeh was impeached for granting permission in July 2006 to Hsin Yuan Power Corp, a cogeneration corporation, to install 490 megawatts in capacity when he knew that Taipower had sufficient power reserves, imposing additional costs on Taipower, which began purchasing surplus electricity from the corporation in June 2009.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan