Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday appeared for questioning amid allegations of corruption and tax evasion, as the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office conducts its investigation into the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) account MG149 case, which was instigated by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators during last year’s mayoral election campaign.
It was the first time prosecutors have summoned Ko for questioning in the matter.
Ko’s former NTUH colleagues Liu Ju-yi (劉如意), the administrative secretary of the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit (SICU), and Tsai Pi-ju (蔡璧如), the director of the hospital’s extracorporeal membrane oxygenation team, were also summoned yesterday afternoon to testify as witnesses.
Photo: CNA
The prosecutors summoned Ko to appear for questioning due to allegations he violated the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).
Earlier in the day, KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) was the first to appear at the prosecutors’ office to testify for more than an hour.
Lo and former KMT legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) had leveled the accusations against Ko and his colleagues in the case.
Later yesterday, when Ko appeared at the prosecutors’ office, he only smiled and made no comment to the waiting media.
Prosecutors asked Ko to verify whether the account contained research subsidy funding that came from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and Welfare and other government departments, and to clarify how the money in the account was used.
Lo, after her morning session with prosecutors, told the media that she was acting as the plaintiff in the case, then accused Ko of creating a “private fund” when he headed the hospital’s SICU.
She said that through the account, Ko accepted illegal donations from businesses totaling more than NT$5 million (US$158,353), and that the account was set up to avoid the hospital’s scrutiny.
“Ko is fighting five major financial scandals in Taipei’s development projects. As such, Ko should bring clarity to his own scandal,” Lo said.
“I am doing this for Ko’s own good, so that he has a chance to explain himself to the public, and to give Ko a chance to repent,” she added.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
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