The Ministry of Finance should block moves by Ting Hsin International Group to sell its stake in Taipei 101 until the conglomerate has provided compensation to consumers affected by last year’s tainted cooking oil scandal, People’s Democratic Front (PDF) legislative candidates said yesterday.
Party candidates and members gathered outside Taipei 101’s main entrance, shouting slogans calling for Ting Hsin to be excluded from capital markets.
Former group chairman Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) and other company officials were found not guilty of breaching the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) by the Changhua District Court in an initial ruling on Friday last week.
Photo: Hsiao Ting-fang, Taipei Times
“The executive branch should not shirk its responsibility,” PDF Kaohsiung legislative candidate Chuang Hui-ling (莊惠玲) said. “We have to pull out the group’s roots for it to realize the severity of its actions and finally be willing to shoulder full responsibility.”
She said that Ting Hsin had failed to show sincerity in resolving the scandal, urging the government to respond by vetoing the group’s bid to sell its 37 percent stake in Taipei 101 to Blackstone Group to raise capital.
Kuo Pei-yu (郭姵妤), who is running in Taipei’s Daan District (大安), said that the Ministry of Finance had opposed an attempt by Ting Hsin to sell its Taipei 101 stake to a Malaysian conglomerate earlier this year to avert public perception that it is allowing the group to profit from its holding.
“As long as that reason holds, Ting Hsin should not be allowed to sell,” she said. “Today, it wants to sell off its NT$20 billion [US$609.35 million] stake to expand other parts of its empire. However, as long as the oil scandal is not resolved, it should not be allowed to continue using other means to ‘torment’ Taiwanese.”
She added that the ministry appeared to have loosened its stance recently, allowing Ting Hsin’s board to pass a resolution to let Blackstone conduct an on-site inspection as a step toward making a bid.
PDF member Hsu Yuan-fei (徐苑斐) said that blocking the sale would be a natural extension of current government orders forbidding national banks from extending credit to the group.
The government controls six of the 12 seats on Taipei 101’s board through national banks, with five seats held by Ting Hsin. Any Blackstone bid is subject to approval by the Investment Commission.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
RSS