A township mayor from central Taiwan was banned from leaving the country yesterday after he and his associates came under suspicion of misappropriating 921 earthquake relief funds and materials.
Prosecutors on Monday raided a villa owned by Wu Chao-feng (吳朝豐), mayor of Chungliao township in Nantou County. The search, which was led by six prosecutors from the Taichung branch of the Black Gold Investigation Center, yielded two truckloads of earthquake relief supplies -- including donations from the Red Cross, World Vision and the Taipei City Government -- donated after the 921 earthquake.
Prosecutors found five prefabricated and container housing units in the villa area, plus five water tanks bearing Taipei City Government logos which were already in use. They also seized two truckloads of relief supplies, including 17 TV sets, five water heaters, 12 gas stoves, 40 woolen blankets, five refrigerators and 15 air beds.
Prosecutors also searched the township administration office and summoned four officials for questioning on Monday night. Three were released later, but reconstruction section chief Pai Hua-po (白華博) was detained.
Wu and some officials are also suspected of bid-rigging in a road reconstruction project and embezzling up to NT$20 million from public funds.
As the prosecutors summonsed Wu for questioning yesterday morning, he took a five-day leave from the township office. His whereabouts remained unknown as of press time. Prosecutors have already issued an arrest warrant and a restriction order banning Wu from leaving the country.
Prosecutors also summoned a number of other suspects for questioning yesterday.
The Nantou District Prosecutors' Office was flooded yesterday with inquiries from donors asking where their contributions had ended up. Prosecutors have asked donors to provide receipts for further investigation.
Meanwhile, Control Yuan members Li You-chi (李友吉) and Chen Chin-li (陳進利) have also applied for a separate investigation into Wu's case. Wu's behavior would be truly "vicious" if proven to be true, the United Evening News quoted Li as saying.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS