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Official demoted to take blame for system chaos
By Loa Iok-sin and Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporters
Ministry of the Interior Department of Household Registration Director Hsieh Ai-ling poses in an undated photograph.
Photo: CNA
Ministry of the Interior Department of Household Registration Director Hsieh Ai-ling (謝愛齡) is stepping down to take responsibility for the chaos that the new household registration system has caused in the past week, Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) announced yesterday.
“Hsieh will take responsibility for problems caused by the new household registration system and be demoted from her current position as Household Registration Department director to the position of counselor, while her old position will be taken by counselor Chang Wan-yi (張琬宜),” Lee told a press conference at the ministry. “The change has been approved by the Executive Yuan and will become effective in a week.”
The household registration system has been plagued by bugs following an upgrade over the Lunar New Year holidays, causing many to have to wait hours for simple tasks such as registering marriages and births, and applying for new ID cards.
While expressing his appreciation for the hard work by household registration office staff around the country in installing the new system and dealing with the bugs, Lee said Hsieh was being held responsible, as the head of the department, because she failed to foresee the problems, put in place effective damage limitation controls and allowed a disqualified firm to win the bidding for the project.
“I have repeatedly stated that, instead of choosing the firm with the lowest bid, we should choose a firm that can actually do a good job,” Lee said. “However, I regret that the Department of Household Registration still chose the firm with the lowest bid, instead of the one that was best qualified.”
Lee said it is especially unacceptable that the chosen firm had been blacklisted by the Public Construction Commission.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said on Wednesday that the bid winner, Huan An Ta Co (環安達科技), was blacklisted by the Cabinet’s Public Construction Commission on Jan. 22.
“This firm won the bid with a budget that was about NT$1 million [US$33,000] less than its nearest competitor,” Lee said. “We’ve saved NT$1 million, but the cost of the damage has been more than NT$200 million.”
Lee said the ministry would invite large firms to work with the ministry’s own information technology center to inspect the system, “so that our center will be better prepared to take over once the system breaks down and the contractor is unable to immediately fix it.”
Meanwhile, Minister Without Portfolio Simon Chang (張善政) yesterday suggested that the ministry terminate its contract with Huan An Ta Co.
Chang made the suggestion at the weekly Cabinet meeting, Executive Yuan spokesperson Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said.
Chang was quoted by Cheng as saying that the case showed that there should be more selection criteria for awarding a government contract for an information technology or communications project than which firm tenders the lowest bid. Given that fact, Chang said the ministry should terminate its contract with the company.
source: Taipei Times
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