Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) penchant for off-the-cuff remarks sparked new controversy yesterday when he said post offices are obsolete and “should have disappeared from this planet long ago.”
Ko made the remarks on the sidelines of a news conference to discuss financial plans for the city’s public housing projects, when reporters asked his opinion about post offices across the nation being closed on Sundays starting next month.
Chunghwa Post (中華郵政) on Wednesday announced that with the exception of the postal branches at the National Palace Museum and on Alishan (阿里山), all post offices will be closed on Sundays in line with new regulations cutting working hours from 84 hours every two weeks to 40 hours a week.
Photo: Pan Shao-tang, Taipei Times
“Given the prevalence of e-mail, instant messaging apps and e-commerce, post offices should have disappeared long ago,” Ko said
“As I see it, land occupied by post offices could use some revitalization,” Ko said, chuckling.
The mayor continued: “I cannot even remember the last time I wrote a letter. All I use is [instant messaging app] Line and e-mail.”
Ko’s remarks prompted a nervous Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) to chime in: “Post offices are still very important,” only to see his attempt fail, as Ko went on about how he had not entered a post office for nearly two decades and reiterated that post offices should be eliminated and their land put to better use.
Dozens of postal workers later in the day staged a protest outside the Taipei City Government building.
The protest came despite Ko having issued an apology online through his aides, in which he praised the hard work of postal workers.
The protesters demanded that the mayor publicly apologize to the nation’s more than 27,000 postal workers.
Chunghwa Postal Workers’ Union director-general Cheng Kuang-ming (鄭光明) said that Ko should not have “insulted people on the main street while apologizing to them in a small alley.”
“Mayor Ko, you have gotten used to making hyperbolic remarks and scolding city government employees, but employees at Chunghwa Post have consistently ranked among the top three professions in the annual surveys conducted by CommonWealth Magazine. What an arrogant tone you have taken to tell us to disappear from this world,” Cheng said.
Cheng said that Chunghwa Post is a constitutionally prescribed body that is vested with important tasks. For example, it would be the nation’s “last defense” in the event of a economic tsunami where all banks have failed and people can only deposit their money at post offices, he said.
The protesters said that the only thing that should disappear from Earth is “politicians talking nonsense.”
They said that they would return and call for a boycott of Ko if he does not publicly apologize for what he said.
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