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.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
RSS