Audrey Tang Who Likes Outsourcing May Mess Up Again
By Lee Ching-kuo
China Times, August 27, 2022
On August 27, the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) officially unveiled its plaque, creating great sensation. The reason is that, in the central government budget for 2023 passed by the Executive Yuan days ago, the MODA takes up a large sum of NT$2.11 billion (about US$7.03 billion), with budget-specified posts of 600, including 300 contract employees.
As we all know, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a very close relations with the keyboard warriors. Now we see a large percentage of staff from outside the civil service, highest in all the ministries, creating public doubts that the infamous “1450” keyboard warriors might be sneaked into the MODA through this special channel. As recruiting of these contract employees are all decided by the heads of relevant departments, it may evade supervision by the public. As a result, whether the quality and ability of these contract employees is up to standard is of great concern. What is worse, if there are some who cannot separate the Party work from the government work and the state resources are used to feed these keyboard warriors, then it is of great public concern.
The administration of President Tsai Ing-wen cannot go without keyboard warriors. Now that the MODA is officially set up and headed by Minister Audrey Tang, with so much power and resources, it is wondered that the DPP may enlist the keyboard warriors to the MODA to be used to crack down dissenters and to launch official propaganda. Consequently, we, the people, should rigorously supervise the MODA.
Formerly a minister without portfolio, Tang has been lauded by the Tsai administration as the “IT genius." However, judging from various failures in the past few years, Minister Tang’s fame is not well grounded. For example, during the recent military exercises by the mainland, Chinese hackers managed to meltdown the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Ministry of National Defense (MND). The pro-DPP media and the convenience stores were also hacked, so much so that anti-American messages appeared on the screen, much to the embarrassment of the Tsai administration.
Against the public concern on why the government was unable to block the Chinese hackers, Minister Tang shamelessly boasted that the website of the MODA "was not hacked a second." At the time, however, the MODA has not formally established yet, so there was no need for mainland Chinese hackers to attack the MODA. If Minister Tang is really a genius, then why did she do nothing when the websites of the MOFA and MND were critically sabotaged? Did she think it is enough for her to take care of only her own ministry?
Minister Tang is famed for the various systems she designed during the pandemic, such as the Mask Map system, Vaccination Registration and Booking system, Triple and Quintuple Stimulus Vouchers registration systems. But all these systems are very difficult to use. Each time a system is out, it suffers major crashes. The users of these systems have to wait a long time and may not be able to log on. Is this the way to combat the pandemic with technology?
What is worse, it is revealed that all these systems were not designed by Tang. They were all out sourced, to the same company mostly. If so, what is the role and function for Minister Tang?
MODA may become the focal point of controversy with Minister Tang "the genius" who outsourced all the time and failed all the time, and her staff who evade government certification. When the Legislative Yuan convenes in September, Minister Tang has to explain to the legislators the MODA's policy and main functions, the staff it employs, and the allocation of its budget. There is no escape, no fooling around for Tang this time!
The author is a senior media professional.
From: https://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20220827000455-260109?chdtv