After the swill oil incident, Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta resigned and the head of the Food and Drug Administration was transferred.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta personally held a press conference at 8 p.m. tonight to announce his resignation over the gutter oil scandal, and Food and Drug Administration Director-General Yeh Ming-kung was also removed, with current Deputy Director-General Chiang Yu-mei taking over. Chiu Wen-ta is the highest-ranking government official to step down over a food safety incident in the past 10 years.
At the press conference, Chiu Wen-ta took out a pre-prepared statement saying that non-compliant lard products could no longer be found on shelves, the offending businesses had been prosecuted, and this wave of the food safety incident had come to an end. "I have kept my promise to never cling to office and to see this matter through to the end." He said he would return to clinical neurosurgery and medical education in the future.
It had previously been rumored that Chiu Wen-ta said he would absolutely not step down, and he clarified on the spot that there was no such thing at all. As early as before the gutter oil incident occurred, he had thoughts of resigning, and after the gutter oil incident broke out, once the handling of it had largely concluded, he decided to submit his resignation and take responsibility.
When a reporter asked how he felt now, Chiu Wen-ta said he was very calm and at peace and he apologized for the unease the food safety incident caused the public, and thanked his colleagues at the Ministry of Health and Welfare for working together for the health of all citizens during his 3 years and 8 months in office. After saying this with a smile on his face, he immediately walked out of the press conference venue.
Three food safety law amendments during his tenure, unable to stop unscrupulous operators
Chiu Wen-ta succeeded Yang Chih-liang on February 9, 2011, and took office as Director-General of the Department of Health. In July last year, it was upgraded and renamed the "Ministry of Health and Welfare," and he was its first minister, yet major food safety incidents broke out one after another during his tenure.
In 2011, the plasticizer incident shocked all of Taiwan, in May 2012, the toxic starch incident broke out, former Food and Drug Administration Director-General Kang Chao-chou stepped down, in November, the Tatung oil adulteration case broke out again, and Tsai Shu-chen, head of the FDA's Food Division, was reassigned; the gutter oil incident in September this year was the last straw that crushed Chiu Wen-ta, and also made him the first minister in Taiwan, China to step down over a food safety incident.
From the plasticizer incident to now, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has already amended the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation three times (formerly named the Act Governing Food Sanitation). After the toxic starch incident, for operators adding unapproved additives and causing death, the maximum criminal penalty was changed from 7 years to life imprisonment; after the Tatung oil adulteration case, under the newly revised law in January this year, the criminal penalty for adulteration or counterfeiting was raised from 3 years to 5 years, and the fine was raised to 80 million, yet it still could not stop food safety incidents, and outsiders questioned whether the Ministry of Health and Welfare was in cahoots with manufacturers and failing to manage the situation.
Lawmaker: The gutter oil incident is not over
Upon hearing the news, lawmaker Lin Shu-fen said bluntly: "Chiu Wen-ta should have stepped down long ago," but she believed that the gutter oil incident was not over at all, and that the Ministry of Health and Welfare only used law amendments, prosecuting manufacturers, and resignations as the conclusion of the incident, without properly reviewing the management problems. "I very, very, very cannot accept it."
Lin Shu-fen said that the food safety incident was not only the responsibility of Chiu Wen-ta alone. Food safety incidents over the years have exposed loopholes in source control, border management, and the handling of operators. In addition to amending the law, what is more important is to strengthen the management system. The Ministry of Health and Welfare has long emphasized medicine, not public health or food safety. "Using resignation as a stop-loss point is merely a fig leaf for the incompetence and dereliction of duty of the Ministry of Health and Welfare."
She pointed out that some officials of the Ministry of Health and Welfare were very close to manufacturers, and that without reviewing this problem, even after one minister leaves, there will still be another food safety incident.