The Taipei City Government yesterday denied allegations that it had attempted to cover up the maladministration of the mayoral allowance fund.
It also dismissed allegations that more than one staffer was involved in the controversy.
City government officials said on Tuesday that after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators including Hsieh Hsin-ni (
Asked why the city government had not made the findings of its investigation public until Tuesday night, Taipei City Government Secretariat Director Lee Sush-der(
"We have to [first find out what is going on] ... How can we explain the matter when we don't understand the situation?" Lee said.
Yu Wen (
After Yu admitted what he had done, the city government spent two days searching for the bogus receipts and found between 80 and 90 of them, amounting to around NT$80,000, amid some 3,754 receipts, totaling around NT$141,000, in the basement on Nov. 11.
Arguing that the city government had not come clean immediately because Ma had not returned from his trip to Paris until last Saturday, Lee urged the public to wait for the results of the official investigation before making any judgment.
"What really matters is whether or not anyone has pocketed the money. So far the city government has found no evidence [to suggest this was the case] ... Let's wait for the results of the investigation," Lee said.
In response to the DPP questioning Ma's claim that he spent some of the fund on rewards and gifts for staff members, the city government released last month's reward list late on Wednesday night.
According to the reward list, a total of NT$89,500 was used to reward 18 staffers, including Ma's secretaries, drivers and bodyguards. Each received about NT$5,000 on average.
Government regulations state that the mayor need submit receipts for only half of his NT$340,000 monthly allowance.
Of the NT$170,000 portion of the allowance for which receipts are required, about NT$80,000 was usually used to reward staff members and the remaining NT$90,000 was spent on matters of public affairs, Lee said.
Ma also used the fund to pay for the breakfasts of his bodyguards and drivers, who usually picked him up early in the morning, Lee added.
When asked to release copies of the receipts, Lee refused and told members of the media not to try to act as investigators.
Sun Cheng-ni (
After first playing hide-and-seek with the media, Sun told the press that she had helped to purchase certain items necessary for the operation of the mayor's office and had submitted the receipts to Yu for reimbursement.
"I didn't know anything about Yu switching the receipts with personal ones," she said.
Ma refused to comment on the matter yesterday, saying that he had appointed Lee to act as his spokesperson on the matter from now on.
"The case is under investigation and I won't comment any further on it," he said.
KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (
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
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the