Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), who usually sides with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) whenever a controversy arises, yesterday lashed out at the ministry over the use of a loan offered to Nicaragua in the purchase of South Korea-made computer durables.
Since the money for the loans comes from taxpayers, goods purchased with such government aid should generally be limited to locally produced products, Lin told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
“South Korea is the country I dislike most. Why were South Korean firms able to secure the bid and not Taiwanese firms?” Lin said.
He demanded that local enterprises have a priority in bidding for government foreign aid projects and said that he will propose cutting the budget earmarked for the ministry if it fails to address the problem.
“If local businesses collapse, you have nowhere to collect tax,” Lin told Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Ko (柯森耀), who was at the meeting to brief lawmakers on local business’ involvement in foreign aid projects.
As the committee’s co-chair, Lin scheduled yesterday’s meeting after he discovered that the computers facilities installed in an airport in Nicaragua under a Taiwanese foreign aid program were South Korean products, not Taiwanese.
According to the ministry, out of a total of NT$49.2 billion (US$1.68 billion) in foreign aid assistance loans offered between 2009 and this year, Taiwanese firms provided NT$6.1 billion, or 12 percent, of the products purchased.
Separately, Ambassador to Palau Maggie Tien (田台清) was lambasted by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) for having the KMT emblem on her business card.
Hsiao showed one of Tien’s business cards at the committee meeting.
Ko said that the ministry has set guidelines for business cards.
“If it is true that the emblem is printed on her cards, it should be removed,” Ko said.
Meanwhile, at the request of DPP lawmakers, Ko promised that the ministry would complete an investigation within one month into an allegation made by KMT Legislator Ma Wen-jun (馬文君) last week that Tien had physically abused her former Indonesian housekeeper two years ago.
FATAL FIRE: The health department is trying to contact the inspector who visited the site of the illegal nursing home to ask why they did not advise follow-up checks The Taipei City Government yesterday said that a health department inspector last year had visited the site of a long-term care facility in Neihu District (內湖) after receiving a report questioning its status. A fire broke out at the facility on Tuesday afternoon, killing three people. The Taipei Fire Department said that it received a report about a fire on the first floor of a four-story residential building on Kangning Road Sec. 1 at 2:38pm on Tuesday, firefighters arrived at 2:43pm and the fire was put out by 3:07pm. The firefighters found three men in beds and rushed them to hospital for
Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Monday called for security improvements to the MRT, as fare evasion has increased more than 13-fold on the metropolitan railway system over the past five years. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has spoken out against fare evasion and other contraventions of MRT regulations, but since he took office in 2015 the number of contraventions has more than doubled, Wang said, adding that there were 537 cases in 2015 compared with 959 last year. A video was posted to YouTube in June showing people how to evade paying a fare,
FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD: Media speculation has fueled confusion about the KMT’s reasons for skipping a Chinese forum and delaying an AIT meeting, party sources said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday said that it is not seeking to improve relations with the US or China at the expense of the other, and that its relations with the countries would be topic-based. The party has faced questions over its foreign policy after it on Monday last week announced its withdrawal from the annual Straits Forum and delayed planned talks with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). The party has also taken a tough stance on the importation of US meat containing ractopamine, while also lambasting China for increasing its military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait. Following
Yuchi Township (魚池) fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), where it has devastated the local ecosystem. Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday. The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up
RSS