The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a seven-year jail sentence for corruption for Hualien County Councilor Chen Ying-mei (陳英妹) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the final verdict in the case, which began in 2010.
Chen, 71, was also deprived of her civil rights for five years, and prohibited from running for office.
Chen, from the Amis Lacihakan Community in Rueisui Township (瑞穗), has been a councilor since 2005.
The case involved civic projects in 2006 and 2007 — public tenders for government buildings and an Aboriginal cultural hall in Jian Township (吉安), and a procurement program for a school in Guangfu Township (光復), with a total budget of NT$8 million (US$281,027 at the current exchange rate).
Chen was indicted in 2010 on charges of contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), including bid-rigging, colluding with contractors and taking bribes.
She was accused of colluding with local officials, and demanding NT$1.3 million in kickbacks from a contractor surnamed Lin (林) for the Jian Township projects, and NT$530,000 for the Guangfu Township school procurement.
The Hualien District Court in 2012 found Chen guilty and sentenced her to 12 years in prison.
A second ruling by the High Court in 2014 upheld the 12-year sentence.
Chen appealed the second ruling and in 2019, the High Court found her guilty of one count of taking a bribe — in the Guangfu school project — and reduced the sentence to seven years.
Meanwhile, two former mayors of Pingtung County’s Linluo Township (麟洛) — Lee Hsin-huang (李新煌) and Tsai Chih-ho (蔡志和) — were yesterday sentenced to seven and eight years respectively on corruption charges in another final ruling.
Lee, of the Democratic Progressive Party, served as mayor from 2006 to 2014, and Tsai, who had been Lee’s chief secretary, served as mayor from 2014 to 2017.
They were convicted of demanding kickbacks of 5 to 15 percent of public infrastructure projects, receiving a total of NT$7.1 million.
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