As several local governments including Taipei on Friday conditionally lifted a ban on using liquid eggs in school lunches, Taipei City Councilor Yan Juo-fang (顏若芳) yesterday urged the Taipei City Government to apologize to the public and the liquid egg companies affected by the policy.
Due to controversies over the quality and labeling of government-funded imported eggs earlier this year, the local governments, led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), banned the use of liquid eggs as an ingredient in school lunches in September.
The governments of Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Keelung and Taichung on Friday announced they would conditionally lift the ban tomorrow, but the liquid eggs are required to have a Certified Agricultural Standard (CAS) label.
Photo: Taipei Times file
Yan yesterday posted on her Facebook page that the Taipei City Government should apologize to the public for the food scare and to the law-abiding liquid egg companies that have been affected by its policy, after online commentator Lin Yu-hong (林裕紘) and a former KMT staffer associated with the egg scare were indicted on Friday.
Online commentator Lin, who goes by “Lin Bay Hao You” (Lin Bay好油) on Facebook, had written articles criticizing the central government’s agricultural policies, including egg import controversies earlier this year, but he later admitted faking the death threats over his criticism.
Yen said the central government on Oct. 25 urged the local governments to lift the ban on liquid eggs in school lunches, promising the liquid eggs would be safe because the use of domestic eggs is a requirement for school lunches, but the local governments still insisted on the ban.
After the harm has been inflicted, now the city government suddenly said it has asked the Food and Drug Administration to provide its liquid egg labeling inspection result and confirmed that the manufacturing process and labeling have met the requirements, she said, asking why it took the city government so long to confirm it.
Yen questioned whether the city government was cooperating with the smear campaign toward the Democratic Progressive Party-led central government so it would not lift the ban.
She demanded that the city government apologize for sowing public panic.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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