Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said sinecure “fat cat” positions within the Taipei City Government will be eliminated.
“There are far too many positions within the Taipei City Government that are purely political sinecures without any consideration of professionalism,” Ko said. “There are too many of these ‘fat cat’ positions, we have to clean them up one at a time.”
He said it was “strange” that Taipei Institute of Pathology president Chen Chiung-sung (陳炯松) had remained in the post for more than 20 years, while expressing incredulity that the former campaign office commissioner for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) in last year’s election reportedly has an annual salary of more than NT$2 million (US$64,000).
Photo: CNA
Earlier this week, Ko singled out the fees Chen allegedly received for attending meetings as examples of overpay given his lack of a professional background.
“I was shocked to discover that every time [Chen] attends a meeting, he receives NT$8,000 in compensation,” Ko said. “On the many government committees I participated in when I was at National Taiwan University Hospital, NT$2000 in compensation for attending a meeting was considered quite generous.”
However, Ko said that despite his dissatisfaction there was little the city government could do to remove Chen given that Chen himself had appointed most of the board members responsible for his election.
Photo: CNA
The city government controls only four out of the 15 seats of the institute’s board of directors, which features many prominent “pan-blue” political figures, such as Taipei City Council Speaker Wu Pi-chu (吳碧珠), New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) and KMT Legislator Hsu Shao-ping (徐少萍).
Ko said that since coming to office, he has gradually become more familiar with the peripheral organizations associated with the city government, adding that he would never have guessed that the independent members of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) could receive up to NT$7 million in annual compensation.
“I think this is one rung of the process of a mayoral handover,” Ko said. “Without a new mayor, no one would have known about these issues.”
He promised to ameliorate the situation “step by step.”
In an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper), Chen said the city government had asked him to help raise money from private firms to establish the institute.
He said he was providing a social service while personally bearing the burden of the institute’s profit or loss, expressing disappointment at being called a “fat cat.”
He added that he has plans to retire, but that the retirement process would be conducted in accordance with the institute’s rules, with his pension determined by the board of directors.
Additional reporting by Kuo An-chia
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