The Kaohsiung Marine Bureau and the residence of former bureau director Wang Tuan-jen (王端仁) were searched yesterday and 22 people summoned for questioning as part of the investigation into the bureau’s lease of Singda Harbor (興達港) to Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co, Kaohsiung prosecutors said.
Wang and another unnamed individual did not appear, and Wang is now listed as one of the seven defendants in two fraud cases against Ching Fu, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office said.
One case concerns the Singda Harbor deal, the other is linked to the Ministry of National Defense’s NT$35.8 billion (US$1.2 billion at the current exchange rate) contract with Ching Fu to build six minesweepers.
Photo: CNA
The joint task force from the prosecutors’ office and the Agency Against Corruption visited the Kaohsiung Marine Bureau and returned with material relating to the minesweeper deal and several bureau officials involved in the harbor lease, it said.
Officials from the bureau and the Fisheries Agency were summoned to clarify how Ching Fu had been able to lease the harbor, the prosecutors’ office said.
The investigation was triggered by an audio recording made on Oct 7 last year, revealed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Nov 14, in which Ching Fu vice chairman Chen Wei-chih (陳偉志) was allegedly heard talking to Wang and other officials about bidding for the harbor rights.
Fisheries Agency Director-General Chen Tien-shou (陳添壽), his predecessor Tsay Tzu-yaw (蔡日曜) and Wang were all summoned to give their statements, the prosecutors’ office said.
Investigators are trying to determine if government officials were involved in helping Ching Fu win the harbor bid, and if so, they might face charges for contravening the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法) and corruption, the office said.
Sources said the probe into the harbor deal and Ching Fu began after Wang stepped down in the middle of this month.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS