April 4 is Children’s Day. It will also be exactly 100 days since Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was inaugurated. As a member of the Taipei Clean Government and Transparency Commission (台北市廉政透明委員會), I feel it is incumbent upon me — ahead of this anniversary — to speak the truth with a childlike innocence: The emperor has no clothes.
The Taipei City Department of Anti-Corruption recently requested my thoughts on a plan for a Taipei City Government corruption perception index. After taking a detailed look, I have concluded that the plan is a case of the emperor’s new clothes: The corruption perception index is in fact an “index of no corruption.”
Simply stated, the plan has no clear aims, methods or index, and is nothing less than a continuation of the governing styles of former Taipei mayors President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌). It feels as if Ko is simply making good on his promise to establish an index.
The “transparency and clean government covenant” in Article 6.6 of the Taipei Clean Government and Transparency Commission charter states: “Introduce Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index through online voting by Taipei residents; publish an annual corruption index for each government department and associated business entities.”
During the second meeting of the committee, I pointed out the inappropriateness of this course of action, but it was neither accepted nor recorded in the meeting minutes.
Now, I have no idea how much it charges to carry out a survey, but Transparency International’s surveys are targeted studies of each nation conducted by specialists making comparisons on a country-by-country basis, and they do not use online surveys. If trying to pass off the Taipei Clean Government and Transparency Commission as a knockoff Transparency International is not a deliberate attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes, then I would jolly well like to know what is. I wonder whether Ko has seen this plan.
The department has made a laughingstock of itself with its questionnaire: Even somebody who is very much involved in public affairs would have difficulty understanding its mumbo jumbo “officialese;” it must be painful for the Ko’s Internet army, who helped propel him into office.
I have had enough of Ma and Hau’s hypocritical style of governance, which is seemingly transparent, yet thoroughly opaque; supposedly incorruptible, yet completely incompetent.
Ma and Hau’s old clothes are being sold to us as Ko’s new outfit. I wonder whether Ko will be happy with this.
Ko does not need to take responsibility for the recently exposed five cases of malpractice within the Taipei City Government that are alleged to have taken place before he assumed office: He could wipe the slate clean. However, although the index is clearly designed to leave the public in awe at the sheer brilliance of Ko’s administration, it nevertheless compares too favorably with the infantile, boring and vacuous “Taipei Beautiful” pet project of Hau.
Mayor Ko, you really are naked. If you are wearing clothes, they are nothing better than those worn by your predecessors. Are you aware that you have used the same old tailor and cloth to make your outfit — the Department of Anti-Corruption? Do you know that it will result in the same dereliction of duty and long-term bungling by the department, which have contributed to the rash of alleged corruption cases that have come to light recently?
Mayor Ko, where is the tailor and cloth from which to fashion an all-new set of clothes?
Jay Fang is a member of the Taipei Clean Government and Transparency Commission and chairman of the Green Consumers’ Foundation.
Translated by Edward Jones
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