The government promised yesterday to “do all it can,” including toughening laws and punishing “black-hearted” entrepreneurs, to restore people’s confidence in the nation’s food safety system.
In response to the second open letter by “an angry citizen,” who published their complaint in the form of a front-page Apple Daily advertisement, the Executive Yuan said that it “will absolutely not evade its responsibility and will keep making efforts endlessly.”
The angry citizen, in their letter titled “Letter to Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺),” accused the government led by Jiang and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of failing to ease people’s concerns over food safety since the “toxic starch” scandal in May last year, in which Uni-President Enterprises Corp was involved, but escaped unscathed.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
A series of food safety scandals have continued to rock the nation and its neighboring countries, including October last year’s “black-hearted oil” incident, in which copper chlorophyll was found in adulterated edible oil.
The two top government leaders’ response to the scandal was also published in yesterday’s issue of the Chinese-language Apple Daily, in which Ma said: “It only hurts our feelings, not our bodies,” and Jiang said: “Like every one of you, I’m worried about food safety, so in my home, we use only imported olive oil.”
“The responses from both of you to these incidents have flabbergasted the public, hurting not only their feelings, but also their physical health,” the citizen said.
The citizen went on to accuse the government of not doing enough to punish law-breaking businesspeople and not alleviating people’s concerns about food safety in Taiwan.
The citizen expanded their complaints to the government’s missteps over the past few years in terms of economic development, social order, labor rights and information security.
In response, Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) yesterday said the government is as worried about food safety and other issues as the general public.
“The Executive Yuan has speedily introduced eight measures to combat the food safety scandals, including increasing fines imposed on culprits, hiking cash rewards for those alerting the authorities and establishing a hotline for public tipoffs,” Sun said.
The other five measures are beefing up controls of all oil products, managing the recycling of used oils, enforcing the existing three-layer quality control system, tracking the sources and manufacturing processes for all food items and reforming the goods manufacturing practice system for the food industry.
Sun said the government has not finished its crackdown on illegal manufacturers.
“We’ve been referring all suspected businesses to the relevant authorities, based on the evidence collected thus far,” Sun said.
“We will pursue all law-breaking cases to the end, bringing justice to all, no matter how big the suspected conglomerates are and how big a share they enjoy of the consumer market,” he said.
Admitting that there will be “pains” during the crackdown, Sun said: “The government is determined to set Taiwan’s food industry on a new track and restore people’s confidence in food safety.”
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