The Ministry of Audit will launch an investigation into the reasons behind the vastly different procurement prices paid for firearms by different government departments, Auditor-General Su Chen-ping (蘇振平) said yesterday.
Su made the remarks in response to a question by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Teh-fu (林德福) at a meeting of the legislature's Budgets and Final Accounts Committee.
"An initial survey conducted by the ministry in March showned that the price differences did exist, and in some cases the price gaps were quite substantial," Su said.
Su added, however, that the ministry needed to find out more details such as differences in exchange rates, equipment and quantities for price comparison.
The survey came after Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Liao Pen-yen (
Liao said the National Police Agency paid NT$98,618 (US$2,961) for a HK MP5, a German-made submachine gun, three times as much as the Navy did.
The National Security Bureau in 2002 spent NT$210,000 buying the SWA-5, another type of submachine gun, which was about NT$100,000 higher than SWA-5s bought by the Army's Aviation and Special Forces Command in 2004, Liao told the committee.
"The two prices were much higher than the market price for the SWA-5 I found on the Internet, which was NT$43,560 per gun," Liao added.
The same problem occurred during the procurement of Austrian Glock 9mm pistols, Liao said, adding that a pistol, regardless of its manufacturer, usually sold for less than NT$20,000, but the bureau and the agency both spent NT$28,000 when buying Glock 9mm pistols.
"The headquarters of Glock once sent a letter to bureau Director Shi Hwei-yow (許惠祐) asking why the price was so high, but Shi refused to respond citing confidentiality," Liao said, without providing evidence.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
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
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