Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) allegedly manipulated the electronic records of the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday in order to deny a story printed in the morning edition of the Chinese-language United Daily News.
The dispute between Yao and UDN senior political affairs reporter Lee Shun-te (李順德) arose after Lee's story ran in yesterday's paper, which alleged that Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was very upset with Yao during last week's legislative meeting after Yao became angry and decided to leave the review meeting for next year's GIO budget, after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) called him a pizi [ruffian,
Lee's story reported that Hsieh had expressed his unhappiness with Yao during the legislative meeting. The story quoted Hsieh as criticizing Yao for "showing off like a hero" and complaining that Yao's behavior would lead the GIO into monetary problems for next year.
The story also quoted Hsieh as telling Yao that Cabinet members are obliged to be questioned by lawmakers and attend legislative meetings, especially when budgets are being reviewed.
"You cannot simply leave just because you are unhappy. It is not right. This is not a one-man show," Hsieh said.
However, the story was denied outright by Yao and Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). Yao implied that Lee had made up the story.
"Are you happy with the story?" Yao asked Lee in front of a group of reporters in the GIO press room yesterday afternoon. "I am afraid that your story is inaccurate because what you said did not happen at all during the meeting."
Lee then told Yao that he had simply cut and pasted the paragraph from the meeting records, which were available from the GIO's Web site. Yao said that he had not seen anything like that on the Web site.
When Lee logged on the Web site and tried to retrieve the offending paragraph, he discovered that the paragraph had allegedly been changed.
The weekly Cabinet meeting record that Lee had quoted was the record for Nov. 16. The GIO usually makes the weekly Cabinet meeting records public a week after the date when the meetings are held.
The premier's complaints about Yao were not reported last week because Yao did not mention anything about them during the regular press conference after last week's meeting.
"I discovered the paragraph that Yao forgot to talk about during last week's press conference, so I decided to take it from the Web site and make a story with it," Lee said.
Yao did not make any further comments about the issue.
When approached by reporters, Cho said that the atmosphere inside the meeting was nothing like Lee had described.
"I remember the premier praising Yao for his heroism instead of complaining about him showing off," he said.
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