Members of the state's highest watchdog, the Control Yuan, are launching an investigation into whether the Hualien County commissioner, who was in Taipei while Typhoon Toraji ravaged Taiwan, neglected his duty as the typhoon bore down on Hualien making it the hardest-hit county.
"We are voluntarily initiating the investigation because we have learnt from media coverage that the commissioner, Wang Ching-feng (
At press time last night, local media reported that the typhoon had claimed at least 24 lives in the county, while 37 people were still missing.
The commissioner, a KMT member, was in Taipei for the party's 16th national congress when the typhoon swept through Hualien County during the weekend. The Central Weather Bureau issued a typhoon warning on Saturday morning. The same afternoon Wang left Hualien for Taipei, and did not return until Monday afternoon.
Wang has said that he intended to go back to his constituency on Sunday afternoon but air and rail services had been cancelled.
Under the Disaster Prevention and Relief Act, the county commissioner or his appointed deputy must decide, in the event of a potential disaster, whether to set up a county-level ad hoc disaster contingency center, which the commissioner or his appointed deputy must head.
Such a center was set up in Hualien but the decision-making process behind its establishment and management and the extent to which it was staffed during the crisis will form the focus of the investigation.
"First of all, we need to know whether Commissioner Wang had requested leave and appointed the secretary general [of the county government] as his deputy [to head the disaster contingency efforts] as he has claimed," Lin said.
Second, Lin said, they would investigate whether the deputy, if appointed, had carried out his duties.
The media have reported that from Sunday night through Monday morning -- when the typhoon was causing its most serious damage in the county -- the county's disaster contingency center was empty but for an army lieutenant.
"So we need to know where those officials [who were supposed to meet at the center] had gone, and why," Lin said.
But one of Wang's secretaries said disaster relief efforts had not been delayed.
"The fact that the officials were not in the center did not mean they weren't working," he said.
He said the county government's secretary general, Chung Wen-chin (
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS