BEEFY DISTRACTION:：DPP lawmakers questioned the timing of questions about feed additives for hogs and President Ma’s blaming of the previous administration
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
Fri, Mar 16, 2012 - Page 3
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration appears to have coordinated a campaign to divert attention away from the US beef and ractopamine controversy by accusing local pig farmers of using more hazardous livestock feed additives, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
“The latest series of developments in the US beef controversy appear to be a plot by the Executive Yuan to sacrifice local pig farmers and ease the pressure over the government’s planned easing of the ban” on ractopamine residue in beef products, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) told a press conference.
After Premier Sean Chen asked all agencies to tackle the controversy “the way you would run an election campaign” on Monday, she said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) created a ruckus on Wednesday by citing laboratory results that apparently showed that pig farmers had been using feed additives “far more hazardous than ractopamine,” such as salbutamol, she said.
That same day, the Council of Agriculture announced it would suspend government subsidies to local pig farmers for foot-and-mouth vaccines beginning next month because of a lack of funds, Chen said.
“The Council of Agriculture decision was an obvious retaliation for the farmers’ recent protest against the imminent lifting of the ban on ractopamine,” DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) told the legislature the vaccine decision was made as part of a policy review on animal disease prevention, and his agency was not trying to shift attention away from the US beef controversy.
However, lawmakers across party lines rejected his explanation as unacceptable.
“The timing of the moves was suspicious and the approach was inappropriate,” DPP Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said.
The DPP also said Ma was trying to shirk his responsibility in the US beef controversy by pointing his finger at the former DPP administration, which he said had promised the WTO that it would lift the ban and so his government was simply striving for “continuity of national policy.”
The DPP showed the government’s notification to the WTO, dated Aug. 16, 2007, which said Taiwan was considering establishing “residue limits for the veterinary drug ractopamine on the muscle, fat, liver and kidney of cattle and pigs.”
However, DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said the then-DPP administration had noted in the document that it would adopt an appropriate international standard, guideline or recommendation, such as the draft maximum residue levels suggested by the UN’s Codex Alimentarius Commission.
“In other words, Ma lied to the people of Taiwan. The DPP did not pledge to lift the ban on ractopamine,” Lin Chun-hsien said, adding that Ma’s excuse of “continuity” was “absurd.”
“[If that were true] he should have continued the DPP’s policy of seeking UN membership under the name Taiwan,” Lin Chun-hsien said.
Hsieh Huai-hui (謝懷慧), deputy director of the DPP’s Department of International Affairs, said the former DPP administration took a responsible and transparent approach in its handling of the issues of ractopamine and US beef imports.
The Ma administration has also instructed government agencies to use public funds to promote its policy on the lifting of the ban, DPP lawmakers said.
The Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission promoted the policy on its Web site as well as a weekly publication with a circulation of about 40,000, DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said.
In response to a question by DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), Coast Guard Administration Minister Wang Jinn-wang (王進旺) said the Executive Yuan had instructed all agencies to promote the policy and to report back regularly.