Kaohsiung prosecutors and the Agency Against Corruption yesterday raided the offices of state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC) over a suspect deal with a private contractor involving CPC chairman Chu Shao-hua (朱少華).
The agency said investigators yesterday morning searched CPC headquarters in Taipei, the offices of the Talin refinery in Greater Kaohsiung and a Kaohsiung contractor.
They seized a number of documents during the searches, the agency added. According to the agency, Chu is being investigated for corruption over a suspicious relationship with a private contractor who won the oil leak monitoring system bid in 2006.
A Talin refinery manager, two engineers and four Kaohsiung contractors were summoned for questioning. The interviews were ongoing as of press time.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) at a legislative meeting on April 12 that when Chu served as director of the company’s Talin refinery in 2002, he and his wife had gone on a trip to Singapore with Tseng Juo (曾若荷), a Kaohsiung-based contractor.
With Chu’s help, Tseng won a contract for an oil leak monitoring system worth US$400,000 in 2006, when Chu was CPC deputy general manager, Lin said.
However, Tseng only spent US$150,000 procuring the system from a US company and made a large profit on the deal, Lin said.
In 2005, Chu wrote a letter of recommendation for Tseng’s company to one of CPC’s overseas contractors, Lin added.
Local media had reported that because of the allegations surrounding Chu, the Ministry of Economic Affairs had requested that Chu retire next month.
The CPC said in a press statement it had no comment on the judicial action and that it would cooperate fully with the investigation.
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