FLU-GATE?DPP lawmakers said a recording appeared to be more incriminating than previously thought and they condemned Taipei prosecutors’ lack of action
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) may have known about a possible cover-up of an H5N2 avian flu outbreak in January, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday as they urged the judiciary to investigate.
Citing more findings from an audio recording of a Feb. 1 meeting of experts held by the Council of Agriculture, a copy of which was made available to them, the lawmakers said council officials appeared to have mentioned Ma and Wu in the meeting.
DPP Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said the meeting was held to discuss the risk of an H5N2 bird flu outbreak that had been reported on Dec. 27 last year in Fangyuan Township (芳苑), Changhua County, but had been kept from the public.
The DPP caucus on Friday filed a request with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division to investigate a claim of malfeasance against Ma, Wu and former council minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) for the alleged concealment of the bird-flu outbreak and reporting the high-risk outbreak as a low-risk one.
The caucus filed the case request after reportedly hearing former Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine director Hsu Tien-lai (許天來) in the recording saying that the notification of the outbreak should be postponed until “after the boss steps down” because “it is not urgent.”
Chao said that more of Hsu’s comments appeared suspicious after he dug deeper into the recording.
Hsu could be heard saying “the big boss has not agreed with it” and “if it eventually takes compensation we would need approval from the Executive Yuan,” Chao said, adding that the “it” Hsu mentioned could be a plan to compensate those farmers whose chickens have to be culled due to low-risk avian flu.
DPP lawmakers said on Friday that “the boss” could be Chen, Wu or Ma, and the concealment could have been an attempt to benefit Ma’s re-election campaign.
Chao urged the government to declassify all documents or materials related to avian flu outbreaks in the past four years for further investigation.
DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) told a press conference that several “bosses” were mentioned in the meeting and Chen, Wu and Ma could all have been involved.
DPP Legislator Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) said the inaction of the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office since Friday was difficult to fathom.
“This incident could very well become a ‘Flu-gate’ scandal, but no one has been detained over the alleged collusion and no evidence has been secured,” Liu said.
“The Control Yuan did not do anything about the possible malfeasance either. It is disappointing,” the lawmaker said.