The Ministry of Finance and its subordinate, the Directorate General of Customs, both received a brace of official censures yesterday as the Control Yuan dished out six in one day.
The finance ministry was found at fault for failing to effectively repossess illegally-occupied state-owned land as well as its failure to properly allocate gauze masks during the SARS outbreak earlier this year.
Customs officials were also censured for their role in the mask mix-up that led to a shortage of protective equipment for medical workers on the front line of the fight against the contagion.
The second censure handed down to the Directorate General of Customs was linked to a Control Yuan investigation into the illegal export of stolen cars.
"The finance ministry was censured since it failed to oversee the allocation and management of gauze masks conducted by the Directorate General of Customs during the last SARS outbreak," the censure, proposed by Control Yuan members Hsieh Ching-huei (謝慶輝), Huang Wu-tzu (黃武次) and Lin Chu-liang (林鉅鋃), stated.
Hsieh and his colleagues found that customs officials delayed the delivery of up to 20 million masks to hospitals in April and May.
"The Directorate General of Customs' failure to make a timely response to the market deserves a review of its procedures and that of its superior," the censure stated.
The Control Yuan's investigation into the finance ministry's seizure of state-owned government residences, initiated by Lin Chiang-tsai (
"The finance ministry failed to perform its role of coordinating subordinates and other government agencies to execute the retrieval plan. The failure produced limited results and the occupancy problem remains serious," the censure stated.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but