Prosecutors and law enforcement agents yesterday raided several offices and residences in northern Taiwan, and summoned Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) and Construction and Planning Agency (CPA) Chief Secretary Hung Chia-hung (洪嘉宏) for questioning over allegations of bribery involving several public construction projects.
Headed by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and investigation units from the Agency Against Corruption under the Ministry of Justice, the authorities gathered evidence from 11 locations in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan.
Chao and Hung were among the 11 people, including six defendants and five witnesses, summoned for questioning, first at the Agency Against Corruption, then at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last night.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Hung is suspected of accepting more than NT$10 million (US$304,860) in bribes from Farglory executives to secure bids on public construction projects between November 2013 and May last year. Hung was a section chief at the time at the CPA’s urban and rural development division.
The investigation centers on a number of urban renewal projects and the reconstruction of military dependents’ villages and neighborhoods in Hsinchu County, Taichung and Tainan.
The Ministry of National Defense’s Political Warfare Bureau had authorized the CPA to handle the planning, administration and public tender of the projects.
At press time last night, Chao, Hung and others were still being questioned by prosecutors, along with former Farglory deputy chairman Wei Chun-hsiung (魏春雄) and Hung’s wife.
Yesterday’s judicial probe was yet another alleged scandal involving Chao and Farglory.
Chao was accused of paying Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文), a former CPA director-general and former Taoyuan County deputy commissioner, NT$20 million to help the firm secure bids for public housing projects in then-Taoyuan County.
Yeh was found guilty by the Taipei District Court on corruption charges and received a 19-year prison term in March, while Chao was given four-and-a-half years.
Yeh was also required to pay a fine of NT$33.17 million, while Chao had to pay a NT$900,000 fine.
The CPA is tasked with supervising the planning and construction of urban renewal and new city division programs, public housing projects, urban roads, city parks, water supplies and sewage.
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