A Taipei city councilor candidate yesterday accused Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) of bribing her KMT colleagues to revise the Accounting Act (會計法) and of tax evasion.
Lo denied the charges, saying she was not a lawmaker at the time.
“We have received reports from a member of the Taipei Certified Public Accountants’ Association that when Lo served as the public relations director of the association in 2007 and president of the National Federation of Certified Public Accountants, Lo gave NT$250,000 [US$6,574] per month to select lawmakers in the Finance Committee to sponsor salaries for their aides and to facilitate the revision of the Accounting Act,” Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Taipei city councilor candidate Chien Sheng-che (簡聖哲) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Many of the lawmakers are KMT heavyweights who are still in the legislature; it may be the end of their political career if I publicize the list.”
Besides illegal lobbying, Chien said the reports he received also accuse Lo of using a false diploma and of illegally using public funds to pay for overseas trips for reporters.
Chien said his allegations are based on hard evidence, and challenged Lo to sue him for defamation if she thinks what he said was false.
“I will give the court everything I have. Let’s just meet in court,” Chien said.
Another TSU city councilor candidate, Hsieh Chien-ping (謝建平), said that Lo may rebut the accusations, but it would not mean she is clean.
“A couple of weeks back, we accused her of taking NT$200,000 per month from a private business, and serving on its board of directors to solve problems that the business may encounter,” Hsieh said.
“Lo said the accusations were groundless, but she still resigned as a member of the board,” Hsieh said.
Dismissing the allegations, Lo said she was not a legislator when the Accounting Act was revised.
“I had no power, and it took more than one person to revise the law,” Lo said.
“Actually, TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉), who was a legislator at the time, also supported the revisions,” Lo said.
She added that there was nothing illegal for a non-governmental organization to give political donations to lawmakers.
“If you think I’ve done anything illegal, go ahead and forward whatever you have to prosecutors,” Lo said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai