PARTLY TRUE: The foreign ministry admitted that more than twice the estimated number of bungled passports were produced, but said it was under no obligation to pay
Taipei Times
Date: Dec 31, 2017
B:y Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday dismissed an accusation by New Power Party
Washington Dulles International Airport is displayed on an inner page of a sample Taiwanese biometric passport on Tuesday. Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) that it has hidden 550,000 additional copies of its botched passport, but acknowledged that a total of 550,000 copies, instead of 200,000 as previously stated, had been printed.
Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) made the remarks in a statement yesterday, responding to claims that the total loss from the passport mishap was far more than initial estimates of about NT$300 million (US$10 million), due to the alleged cover-up.
“Until this day, the public has been kept in the dark: Rather than only 200,000 passports, 550,000 more copies of the botched passport were actually printed,” Huang said on Facebook yesterday morning.
He said the ministry was originally scheduled to accept the second batch on Thursday, but canceled it at the last minute after discovering on Tuesday that the new passport — which went into circulation on Monday — contained an image mistakenly based on Washington Dulles International Airport instead of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
