Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) gave a preliminary response to Taiwan over its latest Global Corruption Barometer, which included the nation among the most corrupt countries in the world, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said yesterday.
Kao said the response was received soon after Taiwan’s representative office in Germany registered its concerns.
The office later filed a formal letter to request that TI reviews and makes corrections to its results, to which the ministry has not yet received a formal response, Kao said.
She said the ministry “lodged strong protests” against the finding that 36 percent of respondents in Taiwan said they had bribed contacts within the public sector.
The results were a “blatant error,” Kao said, because Taiwan had received good rankings on governance in previous TI surveys.
Looking at the annual Global Corruption Barometers, there was a big difference in bribery this year compared with previous years — 3 percent in 2005, 2 percent in 2006, and 7 percent in 2010, Kao said.
Taiwan also had good rankings in the TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index released in 2010, 2011 and last year, Kao said.
She said that the TI’s Government Defense Anti-Corruption Index released in January showed that Taiwan was one of nine countries that demonstrated a low level of corruption risk.
The government has attributed the allegedly inaccurate results to the firm that conducted the survey, which it said was Shanghai-based WisdomAsia Marketing & Research Consulting of Gallup International.
It says that callers from Shanghai with strong accents might have had difficulty communicating with people in Taiwan and thus caused sampling bias.
However, WisdomAsia has issued a statement saying that it did not conduct the survey, although the Global Corruption Barometer, released on Tuesday, stated that WisdomAsia had carried out the Taiwan survey by telephone.
The CRC-research Center of Gallup International based in Beijing later came forward to say it had been commissioned by the TI to survey the situation in Taiwan through online interview.
Kevin Yeh (葉一璋), executive director of Transparency International Chinese Taipei (TICT), TI’s national chapter in Taiwan, yesterday said the office learned from headquarters that the CRC-research Center was commissioned to undertake the survey in August last year before the survey began the following month.
Yeh said the TICT had made a suggestion to headquarters that the survey be conducted by a Taipei-based survey company to ensure quality, but the suggestion was not accepted.
He added the TITC had thought that TI headquarters appointed WisdomAsia to replace the CRC-research Center after it received a copy of the Global Corruption Barometer.
Since China joined the TI, a few years after Taiwan’s formal admission to the TI in 2002, the TI has commissioned survey projects about Taiwan to polling firms based in China, Yeh said.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
A British man was arrested for attempting to smuggle 14.37kg of marijuana into Taiwan through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei Customs said late yesterday. The man, who arrived from Bangkok at 9pm on Friday, was asked by customs officers to open his luggage during a random inspection, Taipei Customs said in a news release. The passenger, whose identity was not disclosed, refused to open his suitcase and tried to flee the restricted area. He was eventually subdued by three customs officials and an Aviation Police Bureau officer. A later search of his checked luggage uncovered 14.37kg of marijuana buds. The case was handed over
RSS