An advisory officer for the Lienchiang County (Matsu) government has been impeached by the Control Yuan for soliciting and accepting bribes, engaging in grant fraud and unilaterally ordering the culling of 83 sika deer.
The official, Liu Te-chuan (劉德全), committed the offenses since 2016 while serving as head of the county’s Industrial Development Division and Public Works Department, the Control Yuan said in a news release on Wednesday.
Liu solicited and received about NT$1 million (US$30,807) in bribes from three companies bidding for county government contracts between 2016 and 2020, it said.
Photo: Yu Chao-fu, Taipei Times
In 2018 and 2019, while serving on a committee awarding industrial innovation grants, Liu knowingly approved five applications for more than NT$3 million in funds that his two sons had filed via shell companies or companies belonging to acquaintances, the Control Yuan said.
In 2020, Liu ordered a company that won an animal control contract from the county government to cull 83 sika deer on Daciou Island (大坵) — an uninhabited former military outpost north of Beigan Island (北竿) — even though the contract made no mention of culling deer and the government had not formulated plans to do so.
The contractor used snares to capture the deer and inhumanely killed them by cutting their throats or stabbing them in their vital organs in contravention of animal welfare laws, the statement said.
The Lienchiang District Court last year found Liu guilty on five charges, including accepting bribes and breach of trust by a public official, and sentenced him to nine years and 10 months in prison, the Control Yuan said.
The Lienchiang County Government on Wednesday said it “respected” the ruling, and would await a subsequent judgement from the Disciplinary Court for civil servants, to which Liu’s case has been referred.
The Disciplinary Court could impose a range of administrative penalties on Liu, including demotion, revocation of his status as a civil servant, a fine, or a reduction or cancelation of his pension.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS