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Taiwan central govt distorts Taichung's probe into toxic oil scandal: deputy mayor

From Liberty Times · () Chinese

Translated from Chinese, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Taiwan's central government criticized the Taichung City government's investigation into a food contamination scandal, accusing it of seeking to facilitate the company's return to operation.
  • Taichung's deputy mayor released a timeline showing five inspections of the company, arguing the central government distorted the city's actions.
  • The city government insists its inspections aimed to trace the source and distribution of contaminated oil, not just approve the company's resumption of business.

Taiwan's central government and the Taichung City government are locked in a public dispute over the investigation into the "Zhonglian" toxic oil scandal. The Executive Yuan on Tuesday criticized the Taichung City government, suggesting its repeated inspections of Zhonglian Oil were aimed at helping the company resume operations. Taichung's Deputy Mayor, Cheng Chao-hsin, immediately countered by releasing a timeline of five inspections conducted by the city government between July 1 and July 9. He argued that the central government's claims were "out of context" and a distortion of the city's efforts.

If it wasn't about resuming operations, why would we need to go to the site? We could just stay in the office and enjoy the air conditioning?

— Cheng Chao-hsinTaichung's Deputy Mayor Cheng Chao-hsin defended the city's inspections, arguing they were not solely for approving the company's return to work.

Cheng emphasized that the city's persistence in inspecting the company went beyond merely approving its return to work. "If it wasn't about resuming operations, why would we need to go to the site? We could just stay in the office and enjoy the air conditioning," he stated. He revealed that the central government initially refused to disclose the second-tier distribution of the contaminated oil. Cheng also quoted the Director-General of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Chiang Tze-kang, as saying, "There's no need to look into it!" This statement, Cheng argued, was crucial and was ignored by the Executive Yuan.

There's no need to look into it!

— Chiang Tze-kangTaichung's Deputy Mayor Cheng Chao-hsin quoted the Director-General of the Food and Drug Administration as saying this, implying a lack of central government urgency.

The Taichung City government stated that while they jointly inspected Zhonglian Oil with the FDA on July 1, the city conducted a second inspection on July 5. The city government stressed that they never agreed to Zhonglian's resumption of operations and were the first to impose a 3 million New Taiwan dollar fine. They urged the central government to cooperate with local authorities to quickly determine the cause of the toxic oil and reveal the truth, rather than misrepresenting the city's lawful investigations.

The Executive Yuan, as the highest administrative agency, has twisted the local government's 'investigation according to law' into 'assisting in resuming work,' which is simply taking things out of context.

— Taichung City GovernmentThe city government criticized the central government's framing of their inspection activities.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Liberty Times in Chinese. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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