Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co’s general manager yesterday said if he could disprove a lawmaker’s allegations that his company is colluding in manipulating vegetable prices, the legislator should have to eat a field hockey ball.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang’s (段宜康) actions over the past week “were no different than a coward’s,” Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) told a news conference in Taipei.
Han placed a stack of the company’s ledgers next to a plate of hockey balls at the news conference and said that Tuan was welcome to inspect the ledgers for the three years and eight months that he had been general manager.
Photo: Shen Pei-yao, Taipei Times
Han said that if Tuan discovered any malfeasance, he would consume the entire plate of hockey balls. If Tuan did not, all he wanted was for the lawmaker to eat one of the balls, Han said.
Tuan should “man up,” he said.
Tuan has made several posts on Facebook regarding soaring vegetable prices, alleging there had been “borers” — vegetable distributors who hoard stocks to drive up prices — in Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co.
He also said that the company has allowed vegetable prices to be manipulated by a handful of proprietors, leading to a steep increase in Taipei’s vegetable prices.
The company’s funding comes from a mix of public and private sources, with the Taipei City Government contributing 45.5 percent and the Taiwan Provincial Fruit Marketing Cooperative, farmers’ associations and vegetable growers providing the rest.
Tuan also accused the company of corruption, saying company directors who grow vegetables have forced it to buy substandard products that they grew at prices higher than market rates and sell them through its supermarket chain, or packaged them in gift boxes for employees.
Many of the stores developed deficits and closed down, while the board of directors sold the remaining branches to the Pxmart supermarket chain during former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) terms in office, Tuan posted on Facebook, urging prosecutors to investigate the company.
Han rejected those allegations.
“Beating people in the legislature is what Tuan does best. He served three terms as a legislator. I urge everybody to look into how many legislators he had beaten,” Han said.
The firm is scheduled to hold a board of directors meeting today, during which three standing directors are expected be elected. The 23-member board is then to elect the firm’s general manager.
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