The process behind Taiwan’s loan to Saint Lucia was transparent and executed in accordance with a contract signed between both parties, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Saturday amid allegations that the money was transferred to a private bank account.
The ministry’s response came after Saint Lucian Prime Minister Philip Pierre said on Facebook that he was seeking to probe how a loan from a foreign government was transferred to a private bank account.
Pierre was referring to the 54 million East Caribbean Dollars (US$19.99 million) in loan financing which Saint Lucia secured from the Bank of the Republic of China (Eximbank) in 2020 to fund the Carribean country’s St. Jude Hospital reconstruction project.
Photo: Yang Cheng-yu, Taipei Times
He said the money should have been deposited into the Saint Lucian government’s Consolidated Fund as mandated by the Finance (Administration) Act of Saint Lucia, adding that someone must be held accountable for the loan’s improper handling.
Saint Lucia’s previous government had secured a loan of US$20 million from the Eximbank to renovate St. Jude’s Hospital, and entrusted Taiwan’s Overseas Engineering and Construction Corp (OECC) to carry out the project, MOFA spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said on Saturday. The Hospital was destroyed by a fire in 2012, he said.
The OECC is a construction company formed by various Taiwanese syndicates to handle infrastructure projects funded by the government in the nation’s diplomatic allies.
Based on the contract terms, the money can be sent to the OECC’s account in Taipei after approval by the Saint Lucian government to fund the hospital’s renovation, Liu said.
The construction company is willing to provide all remittance details for review by the Saint Lucia government, he said.
Liu said that Pierre had told Taiwan’s Embassy in Saint Lucia that the action taken by the Saint Lucian government was aimed at strengthening government accountability mechanisms and financial management, adding that Pierre did not imply any concerns about the loan case itself or the OECC.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its