The legislature has been accused of squandering taxpayers’ money after it recently spent more than NT$1.8 million (US$61,000) to replace fax machines in all 113 lawmakers’ offices.
The legislature recently procured more than 200 high-end laser printers, costing NT$9,900 each and allocated two machines to each of the 113 lawmakers’ offices to replace their original ones.
However, most offices require only one such machine to handle daily administrative affairs, they were tending to stack the other assigned appliance unused in a corner, with some even planning to return the extra device.
The legislative body made its last procurement of fax machines in May 2006, when the legislature still had 225 seats, and assigned one to each office at the time.
However, after the legislature was halved in size from 225 seats to 113 seats — starting with the 2008 legislative elections, the more than 100 additional fax machines were allocated to each legislators’ offices in addition to their original ones.
More criticism also surfaced because the legislature bought the machines from South Korean firm Samsung — an archrival of many Taiwan-based technology firms
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