Taiwan ruling party to discipline jet-setting county magistrate

Taipei - Taiwan's ruling party said Monday it will discipline a county magistrate who has spent taxpayers' money lavishly to travel abroad on so-called inspection trips. Kuomintang (KMT) secretary-general Wu Tun-yi said Kuang Li-chen's overseas trips have hurt the party's image because she was elected Taitung County chief as a KMT candidate. 'Local officials are like generals and should not leave their posts,' Wu told reporters as Kuang returned from a 13-day tour of Europe. Since Kuang assumed the magistrate post in 2006, she has made eight overseas trips, purportedly to inspect tourism operations, costing taxpayers 10 million Taiwan dollars (320,000 US dollars). Kuang and her delegation reportedly spent most of the time on sightseeing and shopping. She also took her mother and ex-husband on some of the trips. Press accounts said Kuang's official reports read like a travel diary. Her report on a trip to Japan to study oceanic industries read, in part: 'The deep-sea water in Japan tastes so good, that one can't image how good it is unless one tastes it.' The report on a trip to Greece mentioned: 'A topless girl walked toward us on Paradise Beach and we were so shocked that we did not know how to react.' Kuang, a former airline stewardess, left on her latest trip - a 13-day tour to Italy, Switzerland and Germany - in July as Typhoon Fung Wong was approaching Taiwan. The storm left six dead and caused severe agricultural damages. Returning home on Monday, Kuang rejected criticism that she should have stayed behind to coordinate anti-typhoon measures. 'Taitung County is like an orphan. I go abroad to raise Taitung's visibility and to promote Taitung's tourism,' she said. Yet official figures show that Kuang's overseas trips have done little to boost Taitung's tourism thus far. The number of tourists visiting the county has dropped nearly 20 per cent since she took office in 2006.