A week after Brazilian eggs were removed from supermarket shelves in Taiwan, Agriculture Minister Chen Chichung resigned.
“I think I have to resign because my effectiveness has been compromised,” he said in a television interview shortly before bowing to the cameras.
“My colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture will be able to do their jobs better,” he added. He cited the unrest surrounding the egg import program as the reason, but did not acknowledge a mistake, saying it was caused by his critics.
The island’s government launched the program in March and by July resulted in the purchase of 145 million eggs from nine countries, including 80 million from Brazil. But a series of setbacks made the issue a focus for months in the campaign for the Jan. 13 presidential election.
The shortage of eggs is worrying consumers, who have been feeling inflationary pressure since the turn of the year. The Taiwanese consume 24 million units per day, but daily domestic production is 23 million, not meeting demand.
Questions about the import began with the discovery that a batch had been identified containing a veterinary antibiotic, florfenicol, whose use is restricted in Taiwan despite being approved in several countries. According to the surveillance authority, the batch was blocked at customs, but from then on the criticism did not stop.
This was partly due to the bird flu that Brazil detected in late May when eggs were imported from the country. “What a coincidence,” joked MP Wang HunjHuei from the main opposition KMT party. “The government just put a label on Brazil [como zona com a doença] in June.”
The import and distribution company Tai Nong Egg responded that the eggs had already left Brazil at the start of the outbreak and there was no risk of contamination.
But foreign purchases have not completely eliminated egg shortages and price pressures. On the 3rd, the Tabulation Commission announced an increase.
On the same day, the KMT requested an investigation into Tai Nong Egg, a company founded a year ago that allegedly concentrated egg imports with government subsidies, calling it a “shell company.”
The crisis subsequently deepened when expiry date errors were discovered on a batch of Brazilian eggs containing just 20,000, but led to them being removed from shelves, as made headlines in newspapers and on television last week. They were still on schedule but with the wrong date.
Opposition parliamentarians said they would “continue to pursue the Brazilian egg issue.”
Shortly afterwards, the ministry finally admitted that it had destroyed 54 million of the 145 million imported eggs, now drawing criticism for the alleged waste of public resources estimated at 200 million Taiwan dollars (30.3 million reais). Surrounded, the minister resigned.