離開
進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Wu says he ‘misjudged’ ex-deputy
TAOYUAN SCANDAL: The county commissioner said he did not adequately vet Yeh Shih-wen before hiring him, amid reports that more officials could be implicated
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporter
As an alleged bribery scandal involving former Taoyuan County deputy commissioner Yeh Shih-wen （葉世文） appears to be snowballing, Taoyuan County Commissioner John Wu （吳志揚） yesterday said that he “had misjudged him.”
Wu said that he had asked Yeh to work for the county government once or twice before he retired as director-general of the Ministry of the Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency in June last year.
“This is not my first day in politics. It has been 10 years. As commissioner, I had to admit that it was my misjudgement that I appointed him to be my deputy,” Wu told reporters following a radio interview yesterday morning.
During the interview with UFO radio, Wu tried to clear up speculation that he had hired Yeh because he was once a subordinate of his father, former Chinese Nationalist party （KMT） chairman Wu Po-hsiung （吳伯雄）, who also served as interior minister, Taipei mayor and secretary-general to the president.
“I seldom talk to my father. My father respects whatever decision I make and never causes any problem for me [in my political career],” John Wu said.
He said that he had not thoroughly vetted Yeh before hiring him in July last year.
Yeh has been suspected of taking bribes from Farglory Land Development Co （遠雄建設） chairman Chao Teng-hsiung （趙藤雄） in exchange for rigging the bidding process so that the developer could secure contracts with the county government to build affordable houses.
John Wu fired Yeh after news of alleged bribes broke when prosecutors conducted raids and issued subpoenas on Friday last week. He also made two large-scale reshuffles of county government officials and referred 143 projects overseen by Yeh over the past year to the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption for investigation.
Those moves have been interpreted as steps to minimize any political fallout from the scandal that could hurt the commissioner’s re-election prospects in November.
Media reports that Chao and Tsai Jen-hui （蔡仁惠）, a retired professor who allegedly acted as a middleman between Yeh and Chao, could turn witnesses for the prosecution have prompted speculation that more higher-ranking officials could be implicated in other bribery scandals.
Minister Without Portfolio Chien Tai-lang （簡太郎） called an impromptu press conference yesterday to deny media reports that he could be a target of investigation.
Chien, a former deputy minister of the interior who is running for Pingtung commissioner on the KMT ticket, worked with Yeh at the ministry.
Chien said the reports were an attempt to blacken his name and hurt his election chances.
Meanwhile, both Executive Yuan Deputy Secretary-General Hsiao Chia-chi （蕭家淇） and Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Lin Join-sane （林中森）, in separate settings, denied any irregularities when they handled affordable housing projects during their tenures as deputy ministers of the interior.
In other developments, Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay （羅瑩雪）, speaking on a Hit FM radio news program, vowed that prosecutors would ferret out corrupt officials regardless of any potential political repercussions.
When show host Clara Chou （周玉蔻） said that Luo seemed to be “blind” to the consequences such investigations could have on the KMT’s election hopes, Luo said that she would continue to be “blind” if that was the way people regarded the investigations.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
