Sociopolitical

AAC heads Taiwan’s fight for clean government

Chou Chih-jung, director-general of the Agency Against Corruption, shares his ideas on building a clean government March 13 in Taipei. (Staff photo/Chen Mei-ling)

• Publication Date：03/25/2012
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  Aaron Hsu

At the urging of ROC President Ma Ying-jeou following widespread calls for cleaner government, the Agency Against Corruption was formally launched July 20, 2011. Chou Chih-jung, director-general of the AAC, talked with Taiwan Today March 13 about the agency’s job.

“People have wanted an authority devoted exclusively to fighting corruption and improving efficiency in the judicial system, police administration and other public domains for a long time,” Chou said.

In June 2010, a police officer in Taichung City was caught working for an illegal gambling operation, collecting bets while on duty; a month later, three High Court judges were detained for taking bribes. These events served to bolster public demand for cleaner governance.

“Coming into existence in the wake of these cases, the AAC has as one of its core tasks the prevention of such flagrant violations, but beyond that, our ultimate goal is the building of a clean, competent and transparent government,” Chou said.

The AAC is staffed with integrity officers, who, like police officers, can apply their subpoenas to suspects of corruption. In addition, as soon as the agency’s prosecutors receive information, they can follow legal procedures to launch an investigation into possible criminal activities.

Replacing the former Government Ethics Department under the Ministry of Justice, the AAC now oversees more than 1,100 ethics units in government offices around the country, enabling it to fight government corruption quickly and efficiently.

President Ma Ying-jeou (third from right) and then Premier Wu Den-yih (second from right) pose at the AAC inauguration ceremony July 20, 2011. (Courtesy of AAC)

To protect public servants from improper outside influence is another central part of the AAC’s job, the director-general said.

According to the Investigation Bureau, hundreds of public officials are involved in lawsuits annually, with 599 corruption cases in 2009 and 544 in 2010.

“We have to realize that sometimes officials don’t commit crimes out of greed, but out of fear of reprisal by gangsters that could endanger their lives or property,” Chou pointed out.

“To counteract this, the AAC has established a nationwide platform to fend off external threats,” he added.

The Water Resources Agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, for example, called on the AAC to help keep an NT$54 billion (US$1.83 billion) post-Morakot reservoir dredging and water conservation program free of corruption.

Typhoon Morakot hit the island in 2009, causing massive mudslides in the mountains of southern Taiwan. After the storm, sediment in Zengwen Reservoir in Chiayi County and Nanhua Reservoir in Tainan City increased by 110 million cubic meters, posing a significant danger to the stability of water supplies.

“In this project, integrity officers work with civil engineers, environmental protection professionals, accounting auditors and village representatives to prevent collusion between officials and businesspeople, embezzlement of public funds and procurement kickbacks,” Chou said.

He added that police officers also work with the team to protect project officials from threats of violence.

“The team members meet on a regular basis and report to their respective authorities, including the Council of Agriculture, MOEA, Ministry of the Interior, National Audit Office and Public Construction Commission.

“Without delaying the progress of the work, the platform has helped civil officials properly handle instances of extortion and false accusations of corruption.”

Chou (center) speaks at a regular meeting of integrity officers on the state of government ethics. (Courtesy of AAC)

The AAC considers the participation of local residents critical to the incorrupt implementation of infrastructure projects because they can identify flaws firsthand and, even more importantly, their involvement helps spread the idea that clean governance is necessary.

“In a modern country such as Taiwan, it’s not unusual to see a local administration fail to meet the expectations of the central government, just as peripheral nerves in the body may fail to carry out orders from the brain,” Chou said.

“Therefore we need to create a higher level of transparency to remove the hidden factors which undermine policy effectiveness,” Chou said, adding the AAC integrity officers will leave no stone unturned in achieving the goal.”

After its establishment, however, the new outfit was criticized as partly overlapping with the Investigation Bureau, also under the MOJ, resulting in a waste of public resources.

“This was a misunderstanding,” Chou said. “The bureau’s investigators do sometimes look into civil servants’ ethic performances, and even arrest them, as their job is so comprehensive, including inquiries into drug trafficking, insider trading in financial markets, treason and the leaking of national secrets.

“It is true both organizations can take steps against corrupt officials, but the AAC does more than the Investigation Bureau in formulating Taiwan’s anti-corruption policy and arousing public awareness at the grassroots level of the importance of clean governance,” Chou said.

One aspect of this work is reviewing the National Integrity Building Action Plan, promulgated in 2009 based on the guidelines of the U.N. Convention Against Corruption and Transparency International, a global anti-corruption civil group.

“The AAC has been pushing for amendments to related laws,” Chou said. “For example, the Anti-Corruption Act has now been revised so that when civil servants speed up paperwork or create favorable conditions—something belonging to their lawful duties—for money or gifts from a contractor company, it is a crime for both the recipient and the bribe giver.

Chou said the change was made to help eliminate the practice of the contractors handing “red envelopes” to authorities. “We would like to remind the public not to break the law, because giving money to government officials is now illegal,” Chou said, adding that those who confess their misconduct in an investigation may be eligible for a less severe penalty, however.

Over the long term the AAC will continue to propose revisions to the Anti-Corruption Act and Act on Property-Declaration by Public Servants, until they reach optimal standards.

The new agency’s efforts are starting to bear fruit, Chou pointed out. In December Taiwan moved up one place to 32 out of 183 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

“This is the country’s best performance in 17 years,” he said. “And I think it will help attract foreign investment, as the cleaner the government, the fewer risks there are for investors.”

“In the meantime, it reminds us to stick to our guns, because if Taiwan expects to be seen as a responsible member of the global community, corruption must be eradicated.”

In the UNCAC, released in 2004, the international body compared corruption to an insidious plague that “undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violation of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.”

Since people’s happiness and a country’s competitiveness depend on a regime free of corruption, this description is not extreme, Chou said.

“For this reason, the AAC will remain ever vigilant in the defense of Taiwan’s clean government.” (THN)

Write to Aaron Hsu at pj1210meister@mail.gio.gov.tw