The Taipei City Government's Department of Labor Affairs yesterday was still searching for NT$450 million (US$13 million) that is missing from China Rebar Co's (中國力霸) labor pension account.
In addition to discovering that the account at the Central Trust of China had a balance of just NT$650,000, department officials also learned that members of the pension account examination committee were appointed by the company, rather than employee representatives, and that the committee had not checked the account for more than a year.
"With little money left in the account, no one in the company will be able to receive a full retirement pension," commissioner of the department Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴) said yesterday at city hall.
After the department failed to find out what had happened to the money, Su said the department had handed the case over to the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office for further investigation.
In an effort to protect the livelihoods of more than 10,000 employees in a total of 25 Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團) companies that are located in Taipei City, the department began to review the companies' pension accounts on Tuesday, and found that a total of NT$450 million had disappeared from Rebar China's pension account. The pension account of another of the group's companies, Chia Hsin Food and Synthetic Fiber Co (嘉新食品化纖), had a balance of just NT$24,000.
"The situation is pretty bad, and we are worried that the companies may not be able to pay salaries," Su added.
After a visit to China Rebar, Su said the company's general manager Wang Lin-mei (
Su said the department would watch closely to see if Wang carried out her promise.
When asked whether the department had examined the company's pension funds before, Su said that the department had never previously examined its accounts, but added that the group's financial problems were not the sole responsibility of the city government.
"Companies that are located in Taipei accounted for only 10 percent of the group, and our department takes the initiative in doing our best to protect employees' rights," Su said. "This issue involved many local governments and the central government as well."
Council of Labor Affairs Vice Chairman Kuo Foung-yu (
"They have been making the bare minimum monthly payments of 2 percent of the employees' wages into the funds," he added, "and there's no evidence of impropriety in terms of recent withdrawals from the account."
When asked whether it would be possible for employees to take their retirement money out of Rebar now, Kuo replied that they would first need to fulfill the conditions for retirement.
"What's important to employees right now is keeping their jobs," he said.
Company officials at Rebar Asia Pacific Group and Chia Hsin Food and Synthetic Fiber Co claimed that they are not in charge of the pension fund accounts and thus have no idea of where the money went, the Chinese-language Central News Agency reported, citing Lee Chin-hsiang (李金祥), associate manager of Rebar Group's human resource division, and Kuo Li-li (郭立力), acting president of Chia Hsin.
Additional reporting by Angelica Oung
also see stories:
Wang believed to be on business visa
Pro-independence group says Beijing must repatriate white-collar criminals
Embattled telco plans board reshuffle
Banks vow to take legal action against Rebar firms
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS