Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday raised the possibility that staff at Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
Last Wednesday Ma said the controversy surrounding his special mayoral allowance was the result of an "administrative defect" by Taipei City Government staffer Yu Wen (余文), who substituted receipts for smaller amounts with personal receipts for larger amounts.
DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (
Ma should ask Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (
In response, the city government's Secretariat Director Lee Sush-der(
Lee, meanwhile, admitted that the person who gave Kuan the mayor's cash remittance note of NT$15 million (US$455,580) to charity groups last Friday was a member of the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Foundation.
The individual's behavior was a violation of personal privacy and an insult, said Lee.
But it was up to the mayor whether to sue the individual, Lee added.
Lee added that the city government would not make public the details of Ma's donation, referring to Ma's announcement on Friday night that he would donate the portion of his special allowance fund received over the past eight years to charity.
Kuan, meanwhile, yesterday also accused the city government of forcing Felix Chen (陳秋盛), a former resident conductor and director of the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, to retire without further investigation into alleged forgery charges that were brought against him three years ago.
Chen, who was present at yesterday's press conference, said the city government also forced him to copy a retirement report drafted by the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, adding that Ma did not deal with his petition.
In response, Lee said Chen's case was referred to judicial investigation after the city government conducted an internal investigation.
Ma also asked the government to handle the case in accordance with government regulations after Chen pleaded with him, Lee said, adding "it is a personal problem. It has nothing to do with the mayor."
Director of the Cultural Affairs Department Commissioner Sebastian Liao (
Chen was asked to write a retirement report because the department wanted to prevent the public from thinking there was anything untoward about the case, since he had not reached retirement age, Liao added.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
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