In order to improve the quality and efficiency of government administration, and to reduce hesitation and doubt in the execution of duties by civil servants, the Taoyuan City Department of Environmental Protection (TYDEP) and the Environmental Sanitation Inspection Brigade of the Taoyuan City Government jointly organized the 2023 Annual “Profiteering and Convenience for the Public” Awareness Workshop and Comprehensive Seminar at the Environmental Protection Park on the April 24. The purpose of this seminar is to clarify the difference between profiteering for private gain and providing convenience to the public, to encourage civil servants to execute duties in accordance with the law and the welfare of the public, and to convey to the public the government's commitment to administrative transparency, simplicity, and convenience, so as to achieve the goal of sound governance that is felt by all.
Chen Shih-Wei, Director-General of the TYDEP, noted that nowadays, government agencies have always taken the people's welfare and convenience as one of the factors to be considered, but civil servants often have to worry whether there’s a thin line between profiteering for private gain and the convenience of the people. In the case of unprecedented tasks or referrals, they are often hesitant and fearful in carrying out their duties, and the result is that they may be guilty of misuse of public power for private profit, which not only harms the rights of the people but also the reputation of the government. The same problem may be faced by the outsourced contractors in performing public affairs because they are recognized as civil servants in the broad sense. Therefore, it is important to draw a line between “profiteering” and “offering convenience to the public”.
In addition to the colleagues of the TYDEP, contractors and enterprises with whom the government has procurement dealings were also invited to participate in the seminar. Public prosecutor Wu Ya-Chih of the Taiwan Taoyuan District Prosecutor's Office delivered the lecture, focusing on cases related to procurement violations and abnormalities in recent years, explaining the clear difference in offering public convenience by civil servants carrying out their duties, and planning a comprehensive discussion session after the lecture. The Secretary General of the TYDEP, Yeh Meng-Fen served as the moderator during the event, and joined by Liu Chen-Yu, Director of the Government Ethics Department, Lin Li-Chang, Leader of the Taoyuan Environmental Sanitation Inspection Brigade, and Prosecutor Wu. In addition to addressing the doubts and questions of colleagues and contractors, the panelists also added the covered the issues of adhering to the ethics of government-business interaction and ensuring a quality environmental protection investigation, so as to promote the strengthening of the registration of the request for investigation of unlawful lobbyists, hoping that through the dialogue and communication between public and private sector, mutual doubt can be resolved and consensus can be forged between the two sides to build a clean, transparent, and beautiful modern city.