An advisory officer for the Lienchiang County (Matsu) government has been impeached by the Control Yuan for soliciting and accepting bribes, engaging in grant fraud and unilaterally ordering the culling of 83 sika deer.
The official, Liu Te-chuan (劉德全), committed the offenses since 2016 while serving as head of the county’s Industrial Development Division and Public Works Department, the Control Yuan said in a news release on Wednesday.
Liu solicited and received about NT$1 million (US$30,807) in bribes from three companies bidding for county government contracts between 2016 and 2020, it said.
Photo: Yu Chao-fu, Taipei Times
In 2018 and 2019, while serving on a committee awarding industrial innovation grants, Liu knowingly approved five applications for more than NT$3 million in funds that his two sons had filed via shell companies or companies belonging to acquaintances, the Control Yuan said.
In 2020, Liu ordered a company that won an animal control contract from the county government to cull 83 sika deer on Daciou Island (大坵) — an uninhabited former military outpost north of Beigan Island (北竿) — even though the contract made no mention of culling deer and the government had not formulated plans to do so.
The contractor used snares to capture the deer and inhumanely killed them by cutting their throats or stabbing them in their vital organs in contravention of animal welfare laws, the statement said.
The Lienchiang District Court last year found Liu guilty on five charges, including accepting bribes and breach of trust by a public official, and sentenced him to nine years and 10 months in prison, the Control Yuan said.
The Lienchiang County Government on Wednesday said it “respected” the ruling, and would await a subsequent judgement from the Disciplinary Court for civil servants, to which Liu’s case has been referred.
The Disciplinary Court could impose a range of administrative penalties on Liu, including demotion, revocation of his status as a civil servant, a fine, or a reduction or cancelation of his pension.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS