The Control Yuan yesterday confirmed that it set up a special committee last week to investigate news reports that the air force's 1992 deal to purchase 60 Mirage fighter jets involved the payment of kickbacks.
A report in a French newspaper prompted New Party lawmaker Elmer Fung (
Control Yuan member Chao Chang-pin (趙昌平) yesterday told the Taipei Times that the special committee had been established last week and that it was similar to the committee investigating the Lafayette frigate scandal.
Chao said the group comprises five Control Yuan members -- himself, Liao Jiann-nan (廖健男), Ma Yi-kung (馬以工), Ku Den-mei (古登美) and Lin Shih-chi (林時機). Ma and Ku are also members of the committee investigating the Lafayette scandal.
Chao said that Vice Minister of Defense Chen Pi-chao (
According to Chao, Chen said that no kickbacks had been paid to seal the deal.
But he added that "the denial itself is insufficient to convince the public. Since the Ministry of National Defense has not investigated the deal, its attitude is not acceptable."
After the briefing, the Control Yuan members officially formed the special committee on the grounds that the defense ministry had not provided an adequate explanation.
According to several reports in Taiwan's Chinese-language media, the Mirage-2000-5 model which Taiwan purchased cost twice as much as the basic Mirage-2000 model.
The original purchase price per aircraft was to have been NT$42 million, but an increase in that price subsequently caused the Legislative Yuan to budget a further NT$10 billion to purchase the 60 fighters.
When Fung petitioned the Control Yuan to investigate the allegations he also demanded an explanation from former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who, a recent book claims, made the decision to go ahead with the deal in 1992.
"A Mirage-2000 is twice as expensive as an F-16," Feng had said. "Obviously it was a bad decision by Lee which cost the government more money [than necessary]. The products were not as good as we had expected. I think Lee should explain whether there was any personal interest or favoritism involved."
Fung quoted an Oct. 30 article in the French newspaper Le Monde. According to the story, French investigators froze the Swiss bank accounts of Andrew Wang (汪傳浦) -- the former Taiwan agent of French frigate-maker Thomson CSF, now called Thales, and fighter- maker Dasault Aviation -- after suspecting that he had earned NT$11.4 billion in kickbacks connected with the Mirage deal.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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