The Control Yuan yesterday issued corrective measures against the Ministry of Agriculture for five derelictions of duty found in its management of an egg import program in 2022 and last year.
The ministry launched the program due to domestic shortages, and commissioned the National Animal Industry Foundation to carry out the procurement.
Control Yuan members Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) and Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義) announced their investigative report at a news conference, after concerns were raised over the implementation of the program.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Five corrections were issued against the ministry, with one sent to prosecutors and another to the Ministry of Finance for further investigation, Tien said.
First, the foundation, funded by the ministry, signed a procurement contract to import eggs with Ultra Source Ltd, a “questionable dummy company” that had not yet been established and registered in Taiwan.
Second, the foundation did not examine the quality and number of the imported eggs according to the performance checklist until it received an invoice, the Control Yuan members said.
Third, the foundation allowed Ultra Source to request payments for its arbitrary purchases of imported eggs from overseas suppliers without reporting their asking prices for comparison, they said.
Fourth, the foundation made payments for the purchases without checking the transaction vouchers submitted by Ultra Source, the report said.
Last, the ministry did not track the overall number of eggs produced by the local industry and imported by private suppliers, resulting in a total of 5,429 expired eggs being destroyed at a cost of NT$91.3 million (US$2.86 million) after more than 70 million eggs were imported, it added.
The key problem lies in the ministry and the foundation’s tendency to “act before thinking,” Yeh said.
The foundation lacked experience for the task, and the ministry failed in its management duties, allowing the procurement contract amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars to be administered by no more than two people, Yeh said.
The foundation had only one previous experience with procurement contracts, which was conducted in 2019 by a woman, surnamed Wu (吳), whose mother was said to be the founder of Ultra Source, he said.
Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) said the ministry would be open-minded and make necessary improvements, although it has not yet received any official notice of the investigation.
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