Peng Huagan's Perspective: Abolish the Control Yuan, Abolish the NCC!

Last Friday, the 6th-term Control Yuan members, led by acting president Lee Hong-chiu, walked out of the Control Yuan with smiles on their faces—they had graduated, and there were no successors! Staff members applauded to bid them farewell, but there were no flowers, no sense of loss. More reporters showed up than commissioners, yet these officials still managed to smile at the cameras. How can you, civil servants living off public funds, face the people with dignity? Their graduation 'achievement' is like 'turnip cake without turnips'! We must ask Lee Hong-chiu: how can you live with yourself?

Perhaps many don’t know: over their six-year term, these commissioners received as many as 82,000 public petitions and investigation requests, yet handled only 1,300 cases. On average, each commissioner completed just 0.6 cases over six years. What justification does this agency have to continue existing? Being called a 'useless chamber' is entirely appropriate. They come to work every day, drink tea, read newspapers, and collect over NT$200,000 per month—what tangible work have they actually done?

Chen Chu, the former president who remained on paid leave despite being hospitalized for a full year before finally resigning—can you accept that? The same dysfunction plagues the NCC. Even its former acting chairperson, Weng Po-tsung, was infamously scammed out of over NT$4 million by teenage fraudsters—an agency tasked with combating scams, yet its top official became a victim. This is a farce.

The DPP’s practice of appointing political loyalists—'yes-men'—has long been criticized. Yet Lai Qingde continues unchanged. On July 31, both the Control Yuan and the NCC 'collapsed en masse' with no commissioners left. Perhaps taxpayers can finally save some money—shouldn’t we celebrate?

When a top-level five-branch national institution and a subordinate second-tier committee both cease operations due to lack of personnel, who bears responsibility? Is it the opposition? Why are the ruling party’s nominees repeatedly rejected? The reason is simple: they keep appointing loyalists instead of competent individuals.

If you would just nominate qualified, impartial candidates acceptable to the public—neither pro-blue nor pro-green—I believe the opposition would approve them. The blue and white camps are not as scheming as the green camp and would never oppose merely for opposition’s sake. Everyone knows this.

Only the president, high above and uncompromising, seems indifferent to institutional paralysis. Fine. You will soon hit even harder walls. This time, you can’t rely on mass recalls. With a minority ruling party, you’ll be a lame-duck president, unable to declare martial law. Where is the nation’s path forward? Truly, it’s pitiful to ponder.

*Author is a veteran media commentator. Published with permission from Jux Media.