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Ma vows changes over MRT fiasco

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he would ask the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) to improve management procedures and enhance staff training to prevent a repeat of the MRT ticketing incident.

Ma made the remarks during his incident report to Taipei City councilors yesterday.

Before Ma presented the report, however, some Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors caused a minor fuss by disputing some wording that the government had used in the report.

DPP Councilor Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) was not satisfied with the expression "acting against regulations" which the government used in the report in reference to TRTC employees tampering with EasyCard records to avoid paying MRT fares.

The draft report had used the expression "acting against the law."

Hsu and DPP Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) said the altered words showed the government had attempted to downplay the scandal and was vacillating in its handling of the matter.

The dispute was resolved, however, when council speaker Wu Bi-chu (吳碧珠) ordered the government to restore the original wording, which she said had already been jointly agreed to by the government and the council.

Ma's report gave details of the events leading to the discovery of the fraud, and proposed measures to improve TRTC procedures and EasyCard programming, which were said to be the two major sources of the problem.

Ma said the fraud was uncovered during an unrelated TRTC investigation into a person who had vandalized MRT carriage seats last month. As part of that inquiry, investigators found a large number of anomalous records in the EasyCard database.

They discovered that at least 127 employees at 50 stations -- accounting for most of the network -- had tampered with EasyCard records to ride the MRT for free. The number of staff involved, however, only included those who committed fraud between Nov. 14 and Dec. 14, Ma said.

Ma admitted that the TRTC had been aware of unusual patterns of EasyCard use since August 2002, but the corporation had not sensed that the matter was as serious as it turned out to be.

He said the employees involved had committed forgery and fraud, but had not acted corruptly since they were not public officials.

"The TRTC should strengthen the legal training of employees because many of them did not realize their behavior violated the law," he said.

Ma said he would suggest to the TRTC that it combine staff ID cards with EasyCards to remove the possibility of fraud.

Ma also said it was "reasonable" to only issue a verbal warning to corporation chairman Richard Chen (陳樁亮) and impose a demerit on corporation president Tsay Huei-sheng (蔡輝昇).

Ma said the lighter punishment was justified because the TRTC discovered the problem and duly reported it. He did not intend, therefore, to remove Tsay from his post.

"If I punish departmental heads who voluntarily investigate scandals, it would prevent them from doing the responsible thing in the future," Ma said.

Many city councilors, however, have been vehement in their opposition to Ma on the matter, saying the mayor was too lenient. They had also asked Tsay to take responsibility for the affair and resign.

But Ma, in response to a question from People First Party Councilor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), said he did not think "there is any difference imposing one demerit point or two demerit points on Tsay."

Huang had criticized Ma for firing eight staff, who he described as lower-ranked employees sacrificed to protect Tsay, who had stood beside Ma from the outset.

"Tsay did not shoulder responsibility for his subordinates, and that showed he was not qualified to be the head of a corporation," Huang said.
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