Legislators across party lines yesterday panned the government's financial management over the Rebar Group saga, with pan-blue lawmakers demanding that top-ranking government officials step down to assume responsibility for the debacle.
Several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators took Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Two of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group's (
This in turn triggered a bank run on another group member, The Chinese Bank (
Rebar Group chairman Wang You-theng (
DPP Legislator Charles Chiang (
"The Chinese Bank had been in trouble for a long time," he said. "How did [Wang] manage to walk away with the money?"
Chiang said that the FSC should have taken over or supervised the bank instead of "sitting on a landmine."
"Premier Su, you did not meet public expectations in terms of financial management," Chiang said.
"We hope you can show some resolve [in dealing with the matter]," Chiang added.
DPP Legislator Yu Jan-daw (余政道) said he suspected some government officials or legislators might have been helping the bank to cover up its poor financial conditions.
DPP Legislator Wu Ming-ming (
In a separate press conference, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) called for FSC Chairman Shih Jun-ji (施俊吉) and Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) to assume responsibility and step down.
"As The Chinese Bank has been under government supervision for five years as Shih himself said, why was there a run on the bank?" he asked.
"[It happened] because the government does not take financial management seriously," Tsai added.
"Shih should take responsibility for this," Tsai added.
KMT Legislator Chi Kuo-tung (
"The [Financial Restructuring Fund] is supposed to facilitate the restructuring or liquidation of poor-quality assets in the banking industry, but the government has only used the fund to salvage banks whose assets had been stolen by the banks' management," Chi said.
People First Party lawmakers also called a press conference, issuing the same demands.
"The legislature had given the government the carrot and stick it said it needed to maintain financial order. But why did it let The Chinese Bank incident happen?" asked PFP Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄).
Liu was referring to the fund as the carrot and the financial regulator as the stick.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS