The Executive Yuan yesterday passed a regulation which requires politically appointed officials to have their property transferred to trust. Premier Su Tseng-chang (
While officials in the Presidential Office fall outside the jurisdiction of the regulation, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Presidential Office Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山) and two deputy secretaries-general will nonetheless put their property into trust, said Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗), director of the Presidential Office's Department of Public Affairs.
The Enforcement Rules of the Act on Property-Declaration by Public Servants (公職人員財產申報法) demands that political administrators declare all their property within three months of taking office, although it doesn't require them to put their property into trust.
"We passed the regulation before any related legislation to demonstrate our determination to run the government with integrity and respond to the people's expectations," Su was quoted by Government Information Office Minister Cheng Wen-tsang (
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has always projected an image of integrity, has recently been implicated in some corruption scandals. This has been given as one of the main reasons behind the party's poor performance in December's local government elections.
Su, who stepped down as DPP chairman in the wake of the election setback, was lauded by the president for his integrity.
He was appointed as premier to replace Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who has been hurt by scandals surrounding the Kaohsiung mass rapid transit system.
Chen Wen-tsung said that the president put his property into trust on April 14, 2004 after pledging to do so in a re-election campaign speech on Feb. 14, 2004.
The public affairs official added that the president was happy to see the regulation passed at the Cabinet meeting.
In accordance with the regulation, officials are obliged to put their own property, as well as that of their spouse and minor children, into trust. With the exception of their permanent residence, all real estate and stock assets must be put into trust.
Su told the Cabinet yesterday that the range of items that must be put into trust had been decided based on the principles of reason and constitutionality, Cheng said.
The goal of the regulation is to make officials' property transactions more transparent without encroaching on their right to dispose of their property, Chang said.
That is why assets like bonds, deposits and cash have been excluded from the regulation.
"Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (
"The political administrators' funds and bonds should also be subject to the regulation," she said.
People First Party Legislator Lin Hui-kuan (
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS