Advocates for civic oversight of the legislature and government yesterday criticized the Control Yuan for what they called the procedural barrier it uses to curb citizens’ efforts to look into political donations.
The Citizens’ Congress Watch, Alliance of Awakened Citizens and an online community known is “g0v” that promotes open data and a transparent government said that with the legislature set to start vetting the candidates vying for a seat on the Control Yuan, many members of the public are starting to wonder exactly what the institution that has cost them NT$4.5 billion (U$150.3 million) over the past six years has been doing.
“President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has pledged to establish a clean government and pushed for ‘sunshine acts,’ but, despite being the agency responsible for documenting political donations, the Control Yuan has been lagging in setting regulations to allow more public access to those records,” Citizens’ Congress Watch executive director Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) said.
Although the hard copies of the documents are accessible to the public, there are no digitized versions, “which means that people have to go to the Control Yuan building if they want to examine the papers,” Chang said.
This regulatory hurdle is akin to discriminating against those who do not reside in Taipei, he added.
Members of g0v who have been visiting the agency to review the political donation records said that they have at times been “harassed” by staff who prohibited them to take photographs of or even hand-copy any documents.
The groups called on Control Yuan members to look into the matter before their terms end, while urging the nominees to vow to revise the regulations if elected.
“Also in need of civic oversight is the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法), as it has become politicians’ ‘fig leaf’ due to its multiple loopholes,” Chang said.
The groups said that all the politicians who have been charged with receiving bribes recently have used the act to claim that the money in question was a political donation and thereby avoid harsher punishments for venality.
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