Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday panned President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for touting a promise to lower the threshold for retired public servants to receive a year-end bonus ahead of the nine-in-one local elections, calling it a “humiliation” for them.
The government canceled the year-end bonus for retired public servants with a monthly retirement pension of NT$20,000 or above two years ago, saying that it was to reduce the financial burden of the government.
However, Ma highlighted plans to change the threshold to NT$25,000 a month during a campaign rally for KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) on Friday. The proposal could increase the budget by NT$9 billion (US$293 million) a year.
“My father, my mother, my wife and I are all public servants, so we know what public servants are thinking,” Ko said yesterday. “For us, it is not really a matter of money; it is a matter of respect.”
Ko said that retired public servants had not asked for the money, it was the government’s decision to allocate the funds, adding: “Of course we could bear it — as my father puts it — when the government is suffering from financial problems and decides to stop giving the money.”
“But when the government decided to stop giving the money, they described us in a malicious way, and now, all of a sudden, it decides to give out the money again,” Ko said. “It is a humiliation.”
Ko described the decision as “policy vote-buying,” adding that “when they canceled the bonus, they said it was because of financial difficulties, but I want to ask: Have the problems been solved?”
Asked to comment on Ma’s description of the Taipei mayoral election as “a battle of a lion against a demon” when campaigning for Lien, Ko said: “My star sign is Leo and we use the lion as part of our campaign logo, so Ma must be talking about me. I wonder who the demon is?”
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