Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 王文岳/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
THE HUALIEN COUNTY government is under scrutiny over corruption allegations involving a free school lunch program.
Hualien Deputy Commissioner Yen Hsin-chan has come under scrutiny in connection to the program. The case dates back to 2023, but May of this year saw searches of the Hualien Education Department and the residence of a former section chief. Both Yen and Hualien County Secretary-General Jao Chung have been questioned. Yen was later released on bail of one million NT, but prevented from traveling overseas. Three contractors were also released on bail of 300,000 NT each.
Specifically, Yen is accused of favoring certain contractors as part of the tender for the lunch program. Likewise, ahead of the tender, requirements were changed to allow a company named Deliqiang that would otherwise not have qualified to meet the requirements. Hualien began to offer free school lunches in 2010, as the first county in Taiwan to do so.
Corruption cases involving Hualien are of particular scrutiny at present, seeing as the KMT’s current legislative caucus chair is Fu Kun-chi, who serves as Hualien legislator and was previously Hualien County Magistrate.
Fu has long been a controversial politician, due to a longstanding reputation for political corruption, with allegations of corruption and insider trading having dogged Fu for over fifteen years. Insider trading charges against Fu date back to 2005, with Fu accused of manipulating the stock prices of Hold-Key Electric Wire & Cable Company Limited after being offered 20 million shares by Hold-Key’s general manager, Yang Kai-ti, and deputy general manager, Yu Su-yuan.
Both hoped to inflate the value of Hold-Key stocks because the company had recently won a lucrative contract from state-run electricity company Taipower. Fu’s actions subsequently led to the tripling of Hold-Key’s stock value. The court case led to a 54-month sentence, which was reduced to a 42-month sentence in the second ruling, and then later to a 16-month sentence that was reduced to an 8-month sentence after the case made its way to the Supreme Court.
Another major scandal broke out regarding Fu in December 2018, with the revelation that Fu spent 5.46 million NTD to bribe journalists for positive political coverage. Fu was accused of misappropriating county funds and rewarding them to reporters from media outlets for positive press. This took the form of what was ostensibly a bid awarded to develop a media database for promoting county policies, with payment amounts in the hundreds of thousands of NTD. 25 reporters from 14 news outlets were involved, including major newspapers and television networks, both pan-Blue and pan-Green, as well as both privately and publicly funded. These include the United Daily News, Formosa TV, Sanlih Television, Next TV, CTiTV, Taiwan Indigenous TV, and Hakka TV.
Most notoriously, when Fu was to be jailed on corruption charges, his response was to divorce his wife, Hsu Cheng-wei, and name her deputy county commissioner. As such, when he was jailed, Hsu could become the acting county commissioner and continue to rule Hualien in his stead. Hsu continues to be the county commissioner today.
The KMT has historically been split on Fu’s role in the party, seeing as while he is able to win elections in Hualien, if he were to enter national-level politics, this would not reflect well on a party that has long weathered allegations of corruption. Having been previously kicked out of the party for corruption, this led to controversy over whether or not Fu should be allowed to rejoin the party.
As seen in the present, Fu was eventually allowed to rejoin, even if this led to further controversy when Fu was accused of vote-buying in the party’s central committee election. Either way, at present, Fu is ascendant in the party, having become the KMT’s highly influential legislative caucus leader. Yet Fu and his political dynasty may find themselves increasingly accused of corruption in Hualien. With Hualien having suffered through earthquakes and frequent seismic activity in past years, this led to allegations that Hualien’s disaster response has been hampered by corruption.