Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will face questioning by the Control Yuan over a scandal involving former city government spokesman Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), who is suspected of accepting an advertiser's offer to run his legislative campaign advertisements on a city-funded electronic billboard.
Wu, who was nominated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to run for a legislative seat in December, was accused by several Democratic Progressive Party city councilors last month of tacitly agreeing to allow an advertising agency to run campaign ads for him on a publicly funded electronic billboard located on the intersection of Zhongxiao East Road and Jilong Road.
The city's Department of Information paid NT$930,000 per year since 2001 to Ho-Feng Enterprises (
After Wu released the news that he would contend for a legislative seat, the electronic billboard began showing Wu's campaign ads with a Department of Information title.
At that time, Wu was still serving as the city government spokesman and the director of the information department.
The Anti-Corruption Committee of the Control Yuan assigned investigative members Lee Shen-yi (
This will be the first case that the Control Yuan has investigated under the Political Donations Law (
The law bans candidates from accepting any donations before they open a special account, which they must use for all political donations.
Control Yuan members will also investigate Ma to find out whether he failed to fulfill his responsibility of supervision, since the mayor gave Wu only a verbal warning at the time that the scandal broke.
Ma said yesterday that he will try to coordinate with the investigators, and said he will answer each question "according to the truth."
Ma added that he always took a respectful attitude towards investigations by the Control Yuan.
Wu said yesterday that he welcomed the investigation. because it was the best way for him to prove his innocence, saying that the advertising agency ran the campaign ads for him without notifying him and that he had nothing to do with corruption.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
NEW DESTINATIONS: Marketing campaigns to attract foreign travelers have to change from the usual promotions about Alishan and Taroko Gorge, the transport minister said The number of international tourists visiting Taiwan is estimated to top 8 million by the end of this year, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said yesterday, adding that the ministry has not changed its goal of attracting 10 million foreign travelers this year. Chen made the remarks at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee to brief lawmakers about the ministry’s plan to boost foreign visitor arrivals. Last month, Chen told the committee that the nation might attract only 7.5 million tourists from overseas this year and that when the ministry sets next year’s goal, it would not include
RSS