Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in a Facebook post on Friday praised Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing (TAPM) general manager Wu Yin-ning (吳音寧).
TAPM is semi-governmental entity, with both the Council of Agriculture and Taipei City Government holding shares in the company.
Taipei city councilors have been highly concerned about TAPM-related incidents, including a decline in vegetable prices in early March, Wu’s decision to ship surplus vegetables to Changhua County for charity and an allegation that she gifted 60 bottles of wine to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taipei chapter, Ko wrote on Friday evening.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“The nation should not be like this. I think accusations should be made with evidence,” Ko said.
He said he asked the supervisory board at TAPM, who represent the city government, to be “in charge of letting the facts speak for themselves and bringing everything to light for the public to examine.”
Ko said he was a political neophyte who finally secured his position, adding that he hopes Wu can remain steady in the face of political wrestling between the pan-blue and pan-green camps and bring her professionalism into full play to maintain a balance between various conflicting interests.
“Wu still needs to hone her political skills, but her personal ethics, experience with agricultural production sources and her passion for agricultural development in Taiwan deserve recognition,” he wrote.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) yesterday said he does not understand Ko’s actions, adding that Ko praised Wu on the one hand, while ordering city government officials to raid the company and investigate its accounting records on the other.
Wu is the “pork barrel” between Ko and the DPP, and as the barrel has been knocked over, there are now conflicts between the two sides, Ting added.
DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智) yesterday said that Ko’s team allegedly leaked many rumors to the KMT, watched as “scandals” evolved and even added insult to injury, only to step in as a mediator.
Asked about a rumor that the central government was considering asking Wu to resign, Yao said that DPP Secretary-General Hung Yao-fu (洪耀福) had denied the rumor, so people should stop spreading rumors about Wu.
When asked about Yao’s remark, Ko yesterday said that “when people requested that then-TAPM general manager Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) [of the KMT] be replaced, I did not think that I had skills mature enough to handle the situation — the DPP claimed that I was colluding with gangsters, while the KMT said I was the DPP’s partner.”
He only insisted that whoever took up the position be professional and able to get things done properly, he said.
Taipei’s political scene is full of sharks and predators, and can be harmful to white rabbits or wild rabbits from rural areas, he added.
Ko recently described Wu as a white rabbit that had strayed into the forest, an idea that she rejected, claiming that she was a wild rabbit from the countryside.
Ko said the DPP administration insisted on appointing Wu as TAPM general manager, so he agreed that if the DPP appointed Wu, the city government would appoint the chairman of the board.
He has tried to keep the situation stable and fair, he added.
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