Yilan: A former civil engineering professor has been sentenced to two years in jail for forgery after he was found to have lied about sending qualified personnel to conduct over 500 bridge inspections in Yilan County beginning in 2018.

According to Focus Taiwan, the Yilan District Court’s verdict, released Thursday, revealed that the falsified inspections were linked to Wan Qiao Feng Engineering Technology Consultant. This company was founded by former Chien Hsin University of Science and Technology professor Chen Ming-cheng and his ex-student, Chang Tsai-chen. In 2018, the company secured a contract worth NT$11.24 million (US$346,732) with the Yilan County government to perform safety inspections on bridges located on Yilan’s county and rural highways.

The court detailed that Chen had initially submitted the information of 11 employees qualified for the inspections, as required by their agreement with the county. However, due to labor shortages, Chen dispatched 10 unqualified individuals to conduct the ins
pections, falsely reporting them as qualified personnel in the government’s bridge information management system.

The company ended up submitting falsified inspection data for 541 bridges across eight Yilan townships. The court emphasized that as individuals with civil engineering PhDs, both Chen and Chang were aware of the risks associated with sending unqualified personnel for such critical inspections. Despite this, they proceeded, thereby jeopardizing public safety, and continued to deny their misconduct without showing any remorse.

Consequently, the court found Chen and Chang guilty of forgery, sentencing them to two years and one year and 10 months in prison, respectively. The verdict remains open for appeal. Meanwhile, the Yilan County Transportation Department has sought financial compensation from Chen’s company, which has already been replaced with a qualified contractor.

In a related issue, Chen Ming-cheng had led a team from Chien Hsin University to inspect Yilan’s Nanfang’ao Bridge in 2016, th
ree years before its collapse on Oct. 1, 2019, which resulted in six deaths and 12 injuries. However, Chen and his team were not held criminally liable for that incident.