It should be thoroughly assessed whether Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taoyuan mayoral candidate Simon Chang (張善政) committed plagiarism when authoring reports for the Council of Agriculture (COA) during his time as Acer vice president, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.
The council, which funded the reports with a NT$57.36 million (US$1.83 million at the current exchange rate) grant from 2007 to 2009, on Friday said it found that about 30 percent of his work was copied from other sources without citations.
It asked Chang and his former employer to provide an explanation before the end of the month, and the KMT candidate, who served as premier from February to May 2016, said he would cooperate with the council’s assessment.
Photo: CNA
Su echoed the council’s preliminary assessment, saying that “substantial portions” of the reports might have been plagiarized.
“The council funded the project with more than NT$57 million in taxpayer money. People receiving such grants must adhere to the rules and follow the agreed upon procedures,” Su said.
“The council must insist that those involved must provide a full explanation. If the assessment finds any wrongdoing, those responsible must bear the legal consequences,” Su said at the opening of a logistics center in Pingtung County.
At a campaign event, Chang said he would send a written permission to the council to make the reports public.
“We will also make the initial project proposal available to the public. People should be able to see how the budget was allocated,” he said. “ I did not receive any payment through the project, and I can prove that. I did not even take a single dollar.”
Chang said he would file a defamation lawsuit against the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taoyuan chapter over campaign material containing an 18-page report on the allegations by Chinese-language magazine Mirror Media.
“The DPP distributed these pamphlets to smear my reputation... The pan-green camp is spreading rumors,” he said. “ I will sue them to defend my good name.”
At a separate event, DPP Taoyuan mayoral candidate Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said Chang continues to deceive the public.
Chang and his team are trying to cover up the issue, he said, adding that his opponent is employing a Russian doll tactic, including claiming that there is a nondisclosure agreement, which the COA said does not exist.
“The public is examining the issue closely... The innermost doll will reveal that there is nothing in his defense,” Cheng said. “He has no credibility. He must come clean now.”
Separately, former Hsinchu City mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) — who was to run for the DPP in the Taoyuan election, but withdrew after his master’s thesis was revoked after National Taiwan University found proof of plagiarism — said Cheng must clarify the issue.
“When I was the DPP candidate, Chang said: ‘Honesty is more important than academic degrees,’” Lin said. “I want to remind him that honesty is more important than running for Taoyuan mayor.”
”The standard that applied to me should also apply to him,” Lin added.
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