The most common criticism leveled at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his seven years in office is that he relies only on a small circle of confidants — who all think the same.
They are all very close and live in their own world, enjoying preferential treatment and distanced from the outside world, which means that there is an increasing distance between them and the general public on the one hand and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on the other.
The Presidential Office recently announced that former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and former Presidential Office secretary-general Timothy Yang (楊進添) have been appointed senior presidential advisers. In addition, former Presidential Office spokesperson Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) is about to become chairman of Chun Pin Enterprise Co and former Hsinchu mayor Hsu Ming-tsai (許明財) is to become chairman of Global Energy Maritime Co — both of whom have been appointed by state-run parent company, CPC Corp, Taiwan.
Meanwhile, former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) was last month appointed chairman of one of Taiwan Power Co’s units.
Officials serve the public, and when their time in office is up, they become ordinary citizens, living their own lives without any special treatment and without lifelong guarantees. However, Ma’s advisers are found well-paid sinecures.
One can only wonder why the international community is not paying attention to Ma’s concern for his underlings.
Every corporate chairman appointed by the Ma administration shares the same distinguishing feature: They have no connection to the company, industry or field of expertise to which they are appointed. It is purely a matter of political rewards.
Even more interesting, the government has practical control over these companies, even though its shareholdings are less than 50 percent, allowing it to avoid supervision as a public enterprise.
Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng’s (鄧振中) explanation for the appointments is that Hsu served as director of Hsinchu’s Department of Labor Affairs and thus has the ability to promote harmonious labor relations, while Fan Chiang studied business management. Following this logic, Shen will presumably be better than most at directing Sun Ba Power Corp toward compliance with environmental operations.
Political rewards are a reality everywhere, not just in Taiwan, but those rewarded should be suitable for the job they are appointed to do. An appointment must be reasonable. The fact that the economics minister cannot come up with any convincing reasons for the recent appointments runs counter to this fundamental principle. To paraphrase a statement by Ma: If this is not a case of political rewards, then what is?
If Ma wants to take care of his own people by giving them new positions, he should at least make sure that there is a match between their expertise and their new job. To force an appointment regardless of expertise and experience does not look good, and lays bare the government’s lack of values and principles. Small wonder, then, that the government draws criticism and scores very low in opinion polls.
Fan Chiang has rebuffed the criticism, saying that he will run for a legislative seat in Taoyuan. This takes some backbone and should be lauded, while the Ma administration’s use of appointments as reward should be condemned. One can only hope that they will rein in the horses and recall the appointments to avoid yet another stain on Ma’s record.
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