Following the Ministry of Health and Welfare's (MOHW) announcement this afternoon (October 11) of substandard food oils sold by Ting Hsin International Group companies, Premier Jiang Yi-huah ordered the MOHW to quickly inform the public of all downstream products implicated in this scandal.
The premier made this call for transparency at the eighth Executive Yuan meeting on punishing and preventing the production and usage of tainted lard oil by unethical food manufacturers.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ROC's (Taiwan's) representative offices in Vietnam have already received confirmation from that nation's Ministry of Industry and Trade that the lard and oil sold by Dai Hanh Phuc, a Vietnamese supplier for Ting Hsin, was only appropriate for animal feed, not for human consumption.
The premier asked that the MOHW refer to the punishments meted out to Chang Guann Co. (found last month to have sold tainted oil) when assessing penalties against Ting Hsin Oil & Fat Industrial Co. and Cheng I Food Co.
The ministry should request local governments' sanitation bureaus to first order the suspension of operations of companies under suspicion in accordance with the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation. If circumstances are serious enough, firms may be forced to close down, halt operations for a set period of time, or have their company, business or factory registrations revoked in whole or in part, Jiang said.
To head off a possible lard oil shortage resulting from recent product and factory suspensions, the premier decided to request the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to issue an official order this Monday (October 13) that the tariff on imported lard oil be cut in half in the short term, from 20 percent down to 10 percent.
The tariff on animal-based oil for human consumption is higher than the tariffs on plant-based oil, industrial oil or oil for animal consumption. As this difference may encourage fraud, the premier asked Minister without Portfolio Chiang Been-chuang to gather together the Ministry of Finance, Council of Agriculture, MOEA and other relevant agencies to deliberate whether to revise these tariffs.
As for the investigation, the Ministry of Justice stated that the Changhua District Prosecutors Office today sent detectives to search Ting Hsin's factory in Pingtung County. The examination is ongoing, and the office will report to the public any progress that is made on the case.
Jiang also enjoined relevant agencies to trace the substandard oil upstream and downstream to other companies using it. The government must investigate unscrupulous producers in accordance with the law, he stressed.