Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) was yesterday ridiculed by netizens over remarks he made imagining oil reserves in Taipei when addressing the city’s fiscal issues.
In a TV interview on Friday during which he was asked by host Shen Chuen-hua (沈春華) what projects he would use to win votes, Lien said that if there is a consensus that the Taipei City Government should spend more on social welfare projects, the problem of how to fund such projects needed to be resolved first.
Lien said he has concluded that because the city government’s fiscal position is weak, many problems facing the city remained unresolved.
Photo: CNA
“Many people proposed pork-barrel projects when there was an election in Greece. Look at what Greece has turned into today,” he said. “Like I have said, if I went to sleep tonight and woke up to find out the next morning that there was oil erupting in front of the front gate of the Taipei City Government building, I would cover all the expenses everyone needs for food, clothes, housing, transportation and leisure activities. However, this kind of thing would not happen.”
“If we had oil reserves in Taipei, I would do a much better job than Brunei,” Lien added. “But right now, we have to produce the best possible results based on the limited resources the city government has.”
Lien’s remarks sparked discussions on social media.
“Is the basement of The Palace where oil reserves would erupt?” a netizen said, referring to the luxury apartment complex on Renai Road in Taipei where Lien and his family live.
One netizen said that Lien’s comment about “oil erupting in Taipei” was the latest in a series of gaffes he has made during his campaign, which all showed he has a very limited understanding of the city and its history.
Lien was previously ridiculed for saying Taipei was a place that Ming Dynasty warlord Zheng Cheng-gong (鄭成功), better known in the West as Koxinga (國姓爺), had visited; as well as for saying there are no traditional markets and stores in Neihu (內湖).
Lien’s campaign spokesman Chien Chen-yu (錢震宇) said netizens had taken Lien’s remarks out of context. Lien meant to say that the reality was that there is no oil reserves in Taipei and therefore it is important to think about how the city can get enough funding for expansion of social welfare projects, Chien said.
Lien yesterday clarified that Taipei does not have oil reserves.
“If we were an oil-producing country, we would have established a fairly comprehensive social welfare system, but we are not,” he said.
Given the weakness of the fiscal position of Taipei, the person elected to be city mayor should have the capability to pursue funding sources to meet demands to increase social welfare projects, he added.
Asked for a response to Lien’s comments, independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said: “Where to get money? There are lots of possibilities, as long as you would like to think how to resolve the problem.”
“Never make any excuse to lose, but find a way to success,” Ko said.
Additional reporting by Wu Liang-yi
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