The “Subsidy for Sustainable Employment Program” was started in 2010. In order to alleviate the effects of global financial crisis on unemployed Taiwanese citizens, subsidies of employee wages were offered to businesses owners to encourage the employment of target citizens and unemployed individuals.  During the execution of this program, government institutions discovered that certain businesses and groups were using dummy companies and creating falsified unemployment credentials and work records or employee wage/salary information to receive employment subsidies from the government. Some of these organizations even acted together as a group to use various methods to illegally apply for subsidies.

        To gain a better understanding of the ways in which various companies and organizations were using this subsidy program, Agency Against Corruption (AAC) of the Ministry of Justice carried out a “Subsidy for Sustainable Employment Program Investigation” (the investigation covered the time period up until June 30^th, 2012). The investigation discovered that there were three main types of illegal behavior, including:

(1) Falsifying unemployment credentials, employee work records and salary sheets.

(2) Creating false employee work records for employees who had already left the company.

(3) Violating Point 10 Article 1 of the program, for example: hiring spouse or family member of the company representative, or receiving other government employment subsidies while hiring unemployed individuals at the same time or hiring individuals that had not been confirmed as unemployed. The results of the investigation are shown in the attachment.

        6 cases of perpetrating companies and groups discovered during investigation to be fraudulently applying for subsidies and falsifying documents have been referred to the prosecuting institutions with jurisdiction over the corresponding region for investigation (recently the Shi-Lin District Prosecutors Office indicted the “Taipei City Nook Care Association” for fraudulently receiving NTD 80,000 in subsidies. The case was discovered by a government employee ethics unit and referred to the Prosecutors Office for investigation by the Taipei City Government Department of Labor). The government employee ethics units of various employment service agencies have assisted with evaluation of the corresponding suspected cases. If cases are discovered with concrete evidence of fraudulently applying subsidies or falsifying documents, they are referred to the authorities for investigation according to the law. In addition, cases of unusual applications discovered through the investigation, aside from not giving subsidies, or discontinuing the issuing of subsidies, additional measures are taken so that the subsidies already provided in such cases are recovered or forcefully executed. Currently a total of NTD 1.84 million of subsidies provided in such cases has been successfully recovered, NTD 1.69 million is awaiting recovery and NTD 730,000 is awaiting forceful execution. The corresponding employment service institutions of each case will continue to recover these funds, helping to decrease the government’s financial loss in these cases.

        In addition, several flaws of the program were discovered during the process of reexamination. 6 specific recommendations for improvements have been proposed and referred to the competent authorities at the Ministry of Labor for reference.  AAC will continue to regularly carry out investigations of similar government subsidy programs in the future, strictly enforcing the integrity of subsidies provided by the government and preventing the malfeasant use of these funds.