A group of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday said they supported Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku’s (魏明谷) compliance with regulations and urged Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp not to use workers’ demands to force the county government into skirting the law.
A group of company employees over the past week has staged protests in front of the Changhua County government building and clashed with police, expressing anger over county authorities’ refusal to issue an operating permit for the plant’s three power generators by a Sept. 28 deadline. Without the renewed permits, the plant is expected to completely shut down, which would leave the workers out of work.
At a news conference in Taipei, DPP legislators Chen Su-yueh (陳素月), Hung Chun-yi (洪宗熠) and Huang Hsiu-fang (黃秀芳) expressed support for Wei, who is also a DPP member.
Chen called on the workers not to “act mistakenly,” adding that the permits were revoked over noncompliance with environmental protection standards.
The plant should reapply for new permits as soon as possible and not waste time protesting, she said.
Chen said that regardless of how the permits were obtained five years ago, the plant must be socially responsible now and obtain a permit with proper inspection of the facilities by the county government’s Environmental Protection Bureau.
The company cannot cover up breaches of the regulations by saying it is trying to create job opportunities, Huang said, adding that while the county is acting according to law, the company is trying to solve the issue through appeal.
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre should take responsibility and seek to settle the issue for workers, Huang said, adding that she hopes the company and senior workers would take the issue seriously.
Hung said the company’s permit applications have already been rejected 37 times.
Hung said it has been revealed that Cho Po-chung (卓伯仲), brother of former Changhua county commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源), had sought funding from the company’s then-vice chairman Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源) for 1 million bags with poetry written on them at a total value of NT$370 million (US$11.7 million).
“Do not think you can simply give financial support to the government and have it turn a blind eye to illegal activity,” Hung said to Hong.
Hung said that the problems would not exist if the company simply obtained the permits for the boilers via correct procedures, but the company has so far failed to do so.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS