The current administration should be pulled off the shelves along with other tainted products, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said as Cabinet members came under a bipartisan barrage of questions and criticisms on the legislative floor yesterday.
The Cabinet is led by the same premier and has the same minister of health and welfare who called for the public to have faith in the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification process after the previous tainted food oil scare, but the system has failed once again despite the public’s expectations, Chen said.
“The government is the product that needs to be taken off shelves,” the DPP lawmaker said.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩) said the GMP label has come to stand for “Give Me Poison.”
She said the latest scandal shows that frequent inspections of manufacturers’ production facilities and tougher penalties are needed, and proposed dropping the prohibitions against double jeopardy and raising the maximum fine for violators of food safety laws to NT$100 million (US$3.31 million).
KMT Legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千) said the Financial Supervisory Commission should require each listed food company to set up its own food inspection department and make such departments a perquisite for a manufacturer wanting to go public. Major food corporations cannot claim to be innocent victims every time a food scare breaks out, Sun added.
Photo: Hou Cheng-hsu, Taipei Times
There are more than 3 million food categories — including finished products, semi-finished products, raw materials and food additives — that require inspections by health departments, but there are fewer than 1,000 food safety inspectors, Sun said, adding: “This is a structural problem.”
DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) also criticized the shortage of qualified inspectors.
After the last tainted food oil scandal, the health ministry in October last year promised to establish a “food safety safeguarding alliance” and recruit students majoring in food and nutrition subjects to conduct inspections, but Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) said the alliance was just established on Monday, which showed the ministry had been procrastinating, Yao said.
Photo: Hou Cheng-hsu, Taipei Times
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) suggested banning the import of waste oil to prevent more tainted food scandals.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) told lawmakers that edible, industrial and fodder oil have always been separately administered and tested, but Chang Guann Co (強冠企業), whose edible lard oil has been found to be mixed with recycled cooking oil, was both an edible oil manufacturer and a trading company.
Jiang said the government would step up the inspections of importers to avoid such misuse.
Meanwhile, Pingtung County Commissioner Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻), a DPP member, bowed deeply as he apologized for the tainted oil scandal, which is linked to an illegal factory in the county.
Tsao said he had accepted the resignations of five of his top officials, including the heads of the environmental protection and public health bureaus. The resignations are to take effect on Nov. 1.
The latest food scandal erupted on Sept. 4 after it was found that Greater Kaohsiung-based Chang Guann Co used recycled oil made from kitchen waste and grease from leather processing plants in its fragrant lard oil products. That waste was collected and processed by an unlicensed factory in Pingtung County that had been the subject of several complaints by area residents in recent years.
Additional reporting by CNA
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
RSS