The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Ministry of the Interior for its failure to submit to the Control Yuan for investigation officials alleged to have been involved in the 1992 Sipiantou (四汴頭) corruption scandal, including former head of Taiwan Provincial Government's Planning and Development Department (住宅及都市發展局) Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元).
The Control Yuan member in charge of the case, Kuo Shih-chi (
The ministry took over the responsibilities of the former provincial government's planning and development department when the provincial government was massively downsized.
Under Article 8 of the Civil Servant Services Act (
But the ministry only sent to the Control Yuan six of the 10 officials who staffed the department at the time of the scandal.
The ministry's stated reason for not sending the four officials -- including Wu -- given in a document it has submitted to the Control Yuan, is that Wu no longer holds a post in the ministry, and the other three officials were acquitted in criminal trials in 1996.
But the Control Yuan rejected the ministry's reasoning.
"The Control Yuan's investigation is outside the criminal justice system. The ministry cannot choose to submit officials who have been found [criminally] liable and exclude those who have not."
Vice Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) responded to the Control Yuan's censure by saying, "This is a matter which occurred under the previous government. I don't wish to comment on it."
Wu, then a member of the KMT, which controlled both the central and provincial governments, was head of the provincial arm's planning and development department at the time of the Sipiantou project, a project to build a water pumping station in Taipei County.
At a 1996 trial surrounding the scandal, Wu and all 10 of his colleagues were alleged to have manipulated the criteria for contractors and to have awarded the contract to their favored companies.
Wu was also alleged to have artificially inflated the budget for the project, to have received NT$6 million in kickbacks and to have illegally handed over 30 percent of the contract fee immediately after the contract was signed. Wu was convicted on all five counts and sentenced to 15 years in jail. Six of his colleagues were also convicted.
Although Wu was imprisoned after his trial at the Panchiao District Court in 1996, he was granted bail for medical reasons in May 1998. Seven months after his release, he was elected to the legislature as an independent.
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