Prosecutors in Taiwan have charged 46 people from Kaohsiung port and five shipping companies over an alleged fraud.
The accused face charges of inflating data in an apparent effort to raise the port’s global ranking.
The Kaohsiung Harbour Bureau director-general Hsieh Ming-hui and 21 other officials were indicted over the past few days on charges they paid shipping lines a total of about TWD 300m ($9.12m) since 2007 to exaggerate shipping volumes, said Chung Chung-hsiao, a spokesman with the Kaohsiung prosecutor's office.
Kaohsiung, once the third-busiest port in the world, has fallen to number eight as China expanded.
"We don't know their motivation, but we do know they were exaggerating," Chung said. "We have to do what we have to do. So much money and so many faked documents - it's pretty big."
After a year of investigation following a citizen complaint, prosecutors indicted the port officials with falsifying records, seeking personal gain and breaching contracts, Chung said.
Port officials declined to comment on the case.
Prosecutors have also named Taiwan’s Evergreen, Yang Ming and Wan Hai Lines, plus APL, owned by NOL of Singapore, and a subsidiary of Japan’s NYK in the case.
A Yang Ming official said the firm had hired a lawyer but could not comment on the case.
Evergreen has denied it inflated shipping volumes and that calculations were in line with transport ministry guidelines.
APL was not commenting, while Wan Hai and NYK could not be reached.
Source: Trade Winds.no Author: Gary Dixon
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