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KMT legislators back Chou over police

Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators from Taipei County yesterday threw their weight behind Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), who has been engaged in a dispute with Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) over whether Chou has the authority to promote police.

KMT Legislator Tsai Chia-fu (蔡家福) said at a press conference in the legislature that Lee had "politicized" the promotion issue.

"This is unfair to Chou," Tsai said.

"It is reasonable for the commissioner to promote policemen as reward for their hard work," he said.

Tsai was responding to a recent controversy surrounding Chou's decision to promote 140 police officers.

Chou's decision drew criticism from Lee, who last week said that Chou was not authorized to validate the promotions because Taipei County, which was granted "quasi-special municipality" status on Oct. 1, was not yet a real special municipality like Taipei and Kaohsiung.

Lee has said that the authority to promote government officials rests with the central government.

Chou on Sunday invited the minister to hold a debate on the issue.

KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), who also attended yesterday's press conference, said Lee was provoking conflict between the Taipei County Government and the central government, whereas the minister should rather have served as a mediator between the county government and the ministry's National Police Agency (NPA).

Wu said that the commissioner was only trying to fight for the county government's right to conduct personnel reshuffles as promised by the NPA, which changed its mind about conducting a nationwide police personnel reshuffle by the end of this month instead of after the presidential election in March as had been planned.

The NPA yesterday issued a press release denying that it had ordered the Taipei County Police Department earlier this month to make personnel adjustments before the end of the month.

"We informed the Taipei County Police Department twice through written documents on Oct. 15 to `plan' for personnel adjustments ? and asked them to make suggestions before the end of October," the NPA statement read.

"The county police department replied the next day ? and quoted a decision by the county commissioner that the adjustments could be made only after the presidential election next year," the press release said.

Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
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