The Taitung District Prosecutors’ Office said on Friday it would indict niether Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) nor the 13 others who accompanied her on a trip to Europe last year, on corruption charges.
District prosecutors launched an investigation last year after receiving a report from a county government employee that the nine business trips Kuang made abroad using public funds since April 2006 were “private and leisurely” in nature.
Controversy also arose when county residents discovered that Kuang was in Europe instead of at the county’s emergency operation center when a typhoon hit Taiwan in July last year, killing one in Taitung.
Thirteen county officials and township mayors accompanied Kuang on the trip.
Chief prosecutor Feng Cheng (馮成) said that prosecutors did not find anything illegal with Kuang’s trip.
Applications to use public funds on the trip followed proper procedure, the officials on the trip met to assign tasks during the trip and they gathered information relevant to development of tourism on the trip, Feng said, adding that prosecutors did not find that any of the 13 officials on the delegation had any intention to engage in illegal activities.
Feng said the job of the district prosecutors’ office was only to investigate whether Kuang and other officials on the delegation broke the law during their trips; determining whether administrative errors were committed during the trips was not part of its remit, Feng said.
He said that the power to launch a probe into administrative errors rests in the hands of the Control Yuan and the Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries.
Kuang, a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), thanked the judiciary for “proving my innocence,” but did not say whether she would run for re-election in the year-end county commissioner election.
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
The government would cancel kendo practitioner Su Yu-cheng’s (蘇郁程) nationality if he is confirmed to have represented China in the World Kendo Championships in Milan, Italy, last week, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. “We have consulted the Sports Administration and were told that athletes participating in the championships must have the nationality of the country that they represent. They must also present their passports as proof,” council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a weekly news conference. “If Su indeed represented China in the championships, we suspect that he has obtained Chinese nationality.” The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the
FATAL ILLNESS: Untreated symptoms can rapidly worsen to complications such as high fever, seizures and loss of consciousness, and can be life-threatening, a doctor said Hospitals have been reporting dozens of people with heat-related illnesses every day over the past week, given continuous high daytime temperatures, so recognizing the early signs of heatstroke is crucial in preventing serious complications, a Taipei City Hospital emergency physician said. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a heat alert for 19 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures in New Taipei City, Miaoli County and Pingtung County likely to exceed 38°C, and temperatures in 12 cities and counties likely to exceed 36°C for three days straight. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses every day from