The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said yesterday that a pharmaceutical company linked to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had been fined for failing to avoid a conflict of interest when selling drugs to Taipei City Municipal Hospital.
Ma Yi-nan (馬以南) was deputy manager of China Chemical & Pharmaceutical Co (中化, CCPC) at the time of the sale, while her brother Ma Ying-jeou was Taipei mayor.
“The China Chemical & Pharmaceutical Co was fined NT$140 million [US$4.1 million] for violating conflict of interest regulations,” Kuan Kao-yueh (管高岳), director of the Department of Government Employee Ethics, told a press conference.
Kuan said that the city government purchased more than NT$90 million in pharmaceuticals from CCPC and another NT$50 million from a CCPC subsidiary in 1998 — during Ma Ying-jeou’s term as mayor.
Citing the Public Officials’ Conflicts of Interests Prevention Act (公職人員利益衝突迴避法), Kuan said the city government should not have had any business deals with Ma Yi-nan’s company.
The act stipulates that companies found to be in violation be fined one to three times the purchase amount.
The accusation first surfaced last February during the presidential campaign when then-Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) team accused Ma Ying-jeou of lying about his role in his sister’s business relations with Taipei City Municipal Hospital.
Hsieh’s campaign team said Ma Yi-nan had been granted sole distribution rights for drugs sold to the hospital.
At the time, Ma Ying-jeou denied the allegation, saying his sister was not involved in selling medicine to the hospital.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said yesterday that the president respects the ministry’s decision.
The CCPC said it would appeal the case with the Executive Yuan.
Kuan also said that when Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) served as deputy minister of national defense in 2004, his younger brother Tsai Ming-shiung (蔡明訓) was board chairman of Air Asia, and that the air company obtained a number of procurement projects and military plane maintenance projects from the military worth a total of NT$4 billion.
The ministry fined Air Asia NT$4 billion for the violation, Kuan said.
Kuan said the ministry thinks the act is too strict, and is contemplating an amendment.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday he was “opposed to amending the law for Ma Ying-jeou’s sake.”
If an amendement is needed, it should make the law stricter, not more lenient, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS