Hsinchu County Councilor Chen Po-wei was detained yesterday on allegations that he forged documents and falsified accounting reports to pocket NT$3 million (NT$98,036) in public funds.
Officials at the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office said they launched a probe after receiving reports of financial irregularities and questionable accounting by the three-term Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) councilor’s office.
The reports said there were problems with salary payments for an office assistant.
Chen is the deputy secretary-general of the council’s KMT caucus and has been a councilor since 2006.
The Hsinchu County Government pays each councilor NT$80,000 per month to cover the cost of two to four assistants.
Financial reports showed that Chen had registered two assistants for the past six years, each being paid NT$40,000 per month.
Prosecutors said that Chen allegedly gave instructions to forge documents and falsify accounting reports to register a man surnamed Hsieh (謝) as an assistant, even though Hsieh has been living for many years in China, where he works for a Chinese company.
Chen’s other office assistant is his younger brother.
Prosecutors said that surveillance of Chen’s office and other evidence indicated that Hsieh had never worked at the office and was rarely even seen there.
Prosecutors said they waited until this week, when Hsieh returned to Taiwan for the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, to conduct raids of Chen’s residence and office, and to bring Chen and Hsieh in for questioning.
They said they have evidence that the salary allegedly paid to Hsieh over the past six years had gone into the bank accounts of Chen and members of his family.
Prosecutors have applied to have Chen detained pending the outcome of the probe.
Hsieh was released yesterday on NT$400,000 bail and the court has barred him from leaving his home to prevent him from fleeing the country.
Organizing one national referendum and 26 recall elections targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators could cost NT$1.62 billion (US$55.38 million), the Central Election Commission said yesterday. The cost of each recall vote ranges from NT$16 million to NT$20 million, while that of a national referendum is NT$1.1 billion, the commission said. Based on the higher estimate of NT$20 million per recall vote, if all 26 confirmed recall votes against KMT legislators are taken into consideration, along with the national referendum on restarting the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, the total could be as much as NT$1.62 billion, it said. The commission previously announced
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday welcomed NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s remarks that the organization’s cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners must be deepened to deter potential threats from China and Russia. Rutte on Wednesday in Berlin met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ahead of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of Germany’s accession to NATO. He told a post-meeting news conference that China is rapidly building up its armed forces, and the number of vessels in its navy outnumbers those of the US Navy. “They will have another 100 ships sailing by 2030. They now have 1,000 nuclear warheads,” Rutte said, adding that such
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 cosponsors of a new US sanctions package targeting Russia on Thursday briefed European allies and Ukraine on the legislation and said the legislation would also have a deterrent effect on China and curb its ambitions regarding Taiwan. The bill backed by US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations such as China and India, which account for about 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade, the bankroll of much of its war effort. Graham and Blumenthal told The Associated Press
RSS