The Agriculture Ministry is facing criticism after their app’s calendar displayed Chinese holidays. Agriculture Minister Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) apologized for the mistake, saying the ministry will take responsibility, despite attributing the calendar to vendor error. 

The Agriculture Minstry’s app, “agriculture e-handling” (農務e把抓) is meant to assist farmers in managing their farms and field operations, according to its listing on the app store. However, a controversy began when an in-app calendar began displaying Chinese national holidays, such as China’s October 1st National Day and August 1st Army Day. Speaking to the issue on Friday, October 2, Chen said the error has been corrected, but that the ministry will take accountability for the issue.

Chen said, “When we investigated, we found that the developer made a mistake involving a third-party calendar. There’s no doubt about that. However, regardless of the circumstances — even though it was the developer’s mistake — the Agriculture Ministry bears oversight responsibility. Therefore, I’d like to formally apologize to all those using the app. We released an update last night and have also updated it through the appropriate Google channels. So if you use the app again today, you’ll see the updated version, and the error won’t occur again.”