The Hualien Branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a guilty verdict in the appeal of Hualien County Councilor Hsu Shu-yin (許淑銀), who had been convicted on charges of corruption and receiving bribes.
The court sentenced Hsu to eight years, six months in prison.
Hsu, who is a Truku Aborigine from Sioulin Township (秀林), had won elections for township mayor and county councilor, representing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Photo: Wang Chun-chi, Taipei Times
Along with the prison term, the court also deprived Hsu of her civil rights for five years.
The ruling can still be appealed.
Prosecutors said that Hsu had received kickbacks and bribes from a contractor working on infrastructure construction projects in the aftermath of Typhoon Saola in 2012.
When Typhoon Saola struck Taiwan’s east coast and mountainous regions in August 2012, it caused landslides and flooding that buried houses, knocked out roads and bridges, and devastated several Aboriginal communities in Hualien County.
Hsu was Sioulin Township mayor at the time and media coverage showed her leading volunteers to provide much-needed supplies and other relief efforts to typhoon-hit Aboriginal villages.
After her actions were captured on television Hsu was praised by the public and then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) described her as “courageous.”
However, it was later discovered that she used her position as mayor to collude with Wang Chin-fu (王金福), a then-KMT county councilor, as Wang obtained numerous contracts for disaster relief work.
Wang received central governments funding of about NT$15 million (US$514,350 at the current exchange rate).
Hsu knew that Wang did not operate a construction company and did not have a business license, but Wang borrowed licenses from other companies in order to undertake the projects, which required government approval, prosecutors said
In exchange, Wang paid bribes and kickback money to Hsu, between 10 and 20 percent of each project’s budget.
Hsu had received about NT$2.45 million from Wang, prosecutors said.
Court documents also showed that Hsu instructed Wu Chun-hung (吳俊宏), deputy section chief in charge of public construction projects in Sioulin Township, to collaborate in the scheme and give Wang the contracts, for which Wu had received NT$300,000 in kickbacks.
In yesterday’s ruling, Wu also had his earlier conviction upheld.
He received a six-year prison term and was deprived of his civil rights for four years.
“Hsu in her capacity as township mayor had the authority to award contracts for small construction projects, for which she abused her position and handed over the projects to an unqualified contractor. It was collusion for financial benefit. She used the public construction projects for her own personal gain, which had seriously damaged and undermined the reputation of local government officials and bureaucrats,” the ruling said.
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