By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
A report on an internal investigation by the Council of Agriculture (COA) into an alleged cover-up an avian flu outbreak was described as “ridiculous” and “responsibility-shirking” by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday.
The report, released on Monday, concluded that there was no concealment by the council of the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian flu outbreak.
The report looked into five avian influenza outbreaks from 2008 until this year, including an outbreak in Sinshih (新市) in the then-Tainan county in March 2009, the outbreak in Fangyuan (芳苑), Changhua County, in late December last year and the outbreak in Liujia (六甲) in Greater Tainan, last month.
The report said announcements about highly pathogenic avian influenza cases were delayed because the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine and the Livestock Research Institute had different opinions on the determination criteria.
Meanwhile, according to COA Secretary-General Tai Yu-yen (戴玉燕), the “boss” mentioned by the bureau’s former director Hsu Tien-lai (許天來) in a recording from a meeting on Feb. 1 referred to former COA minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄).
“Because the preventive measures for an avian influenza epidemic have to be authorized by the Executive Yuan, the ‘big boss’ he mentioned was the Executive Yuan,” Tai said, adding that when Hsu spoke of “when the boss steps into power” later in the recording, he meant current COA Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基).
The report added that no government official would be held accountable since there was no cover-up.
“It was not a surprise that the investigation panel made up of five COA officials failed to find fault with the council because they did not dare offend their supervisors, including the minister and vice ministers,” DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) told a press conference yesterday.
With the council trying to evade responsibility in the administrative investigation, the only way to uncover the truth would be an investigation from “the outside,” such as through the Control Yuan or a judicial probe by the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office and the Supreme Prosecutor Office’s Special Investigation Division, DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said.
DPP Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said the council confirmed that the Dec. 27 outbreak in Changhua was a high-risk one on Jan. 10, but it told the World Organisation for Animal Heath (OIE) that is was low risk.
The council also failed to report the 2009 Sinshih outbreak to the OIE, which was later confirmed as highly pathogenic, he said.
In response to Chao, Premier Sean Chen said the cover-up in 2009 was “a substantial fact,” but added that there was no telling whether the concealment was intentional.
The premier declined to describe the council’s handling of the Changhua case as a cover-up, but said that the council’s procedures were “flawed and inappropriate” and that it was slow to make an evaluation of the threat.
Additional reporting by Lee I-chia and CNA