Former Taiwan Post Co (臺灣郵政) chairman Lai Chin-chyi (賴清祺) said yesterday that his resignation from the postal company had nothing to do with the controversial name change that occurred last month.
"I just want to take a break, that's all," he said in a farewell party yesterday morning. "And if anyone of you [reporters] wants to say that my resignation was related to name change disputes, I can only say that I seek neither promotion nor fortune as a civil servant.
Asked if he had made this decision to avoid encountering difficulties at the Legislative Yuan, Lai said that he was not afraid to confront any difficulties.
The state-run postal company changed its name from Chunghwa Post (
A temporary board meeting convened yesterday to elect Ho Nuan-hsuen (
Ho, along with MOTC minister Tsai Duei (
However, when Tsai Liang-chuan appeared on stage and presented a parting gift to Lai, representatives from the workers' union yelled "disgusting chairman!"
During protests last month, Tsai Liang-chuan said that both Lai and company president Wu Min-yu (吳民佑) should resign for having carried out the name change without consulting the employees and taxpayers.
"We are ambivalent about his [Lai's] resignation," Tsai Liang-chuan told the press. "It's a pity that a corporate leader has to step down because of the name change. It's a loss for the company."
But Wu Wen-feng (吳文豐), representative of workers' union at the company's headquarters, said that Tsai Liang-chuen's remarks did not represent the position of the union.
"Last month, he [Tsai Liang-chuen] was leading us to the street; now he is doing this [presenting gift to Lai]," Wu said. "We have been fooled by him all along!"
"What really concerns us, from the way they handled the name change, is that we will wake up one day to a privatized postal company," Wu added.
"It isn't the MOTC [owner of Taiwan Post] that will suffer the loss of an asset worth NT$400 billion [US$12.2 billion]. It's you, me and all the other taxpayers who have to deal with the consequences," he 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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