The Control Yuan yesterday impeached four Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) officials for corruption when handling a train renovation project.
Freight department deputy director Lee Ching-tsun (李景村) and vehicle management section officials Tsai Wen-tien (蔡文田), Kao Tsun-te (高村德) and Chuang Ching-wen (莊經文) were impeached, the Control Yuan said.
Control Yuan member Yang Mei-ling (楊美鈴), who led the investigation into the case, charged the four with bid-rigging for a NT$900 million (US$27.8 million) project to renovate 38 trains between 2001 to 2005.
Yang said the officials were involved in a series of irregularities in the bidding process and violated the Statute Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) and the Civil Servants Work Act (公務人員服務法).
Ahead of the bidding, one of the companies treated Kao to a trip to China, the Control Yuan said. Kao accepted a NT$400,000 bribe from the business, which won the contract for the project. Tsai was found guilty of disclosing confidential details of the project during the bidding process, Yang said.
In addition to accepting the kickback, Kao violated a regulation requiring government officials to obtain approval from the Mainland Affairs Council before visiting China, Yang said.
The Taipei District Court sentenced Kao to 10 years and six months in prison and Tsai to five years and six months. It also deprived Kao of his civil rights for six years and ordered the bribe confiscated, and deprived Tsai of his civil rights for three years.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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