The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday decided to dismiss around 1,100 employees over the next two years and initiate reforms at its regional offices to increase transparency in the party, officials said.
During the KMT's Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday, the party passed reforms calling for a reduction in the number of employees at its central headquarters in Taipei to just 100 and to a total of 500 at its other offices around the country.
The KMT currently has around 1,700 employees.
The goal of the changes, KMT spokeswoman Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文) said yesterday, was to decrease the number of employees while increasing the number of volunteers within the next two years.
"The KMT is seeking to reform its party operations to be more volunteer-based, democratic and youth-orientated," Cheng said.
The announcement came in the wake of rumors that the KMT was planning to dismiss the majority of its employees after the Lunar New Year holiday as a result of its financial woes.
The KMT also decided at the Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday that it would begin to hold internal elections for various positions in the party in the near future as part of its grassroots reforms.
In the future, the directors of its city and county offices will be elected by each region's party members, as opposed to being appointed by party headquarters.
Furthermore, local party representatives to the party's yearly Central Committee meeting are also to be elected at the regional level, the committee decided yesterday.
Election regulations for regional offices are still being determined by the party and will be announced at a later date, Cheng said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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