Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that he would place 510 pending serious crime cases on a follow-up list to be monitored by the Taipei City Government.
Ko made the announcement in response to a question from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) during a question-and-answer session at the Taipei City Council.
Referring to the number of unsolved crimes in the city over the past few years, Wang said that the city government has installed many surveillance cameras in the past 10 years to improve public security, but the statistics show that they are not very effective.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
A total of 510 crimes deemed “serious” have not been solved in the past 20 years, including 54 attempted murders or murders, resulting in 16 deaths, six of which occurred after the security cameras were installed, he said.
The city government has been ignoring the pending cases, he added.
Surveillance cameras can help police find criminals more easily, Ko said.
However, he said, he had not been informed about the number of unsolved serious crimes during public security meetings, which he hosts, adding that he would put the cases on the follow-up list.
Wang also asked why the city’s surplus fund totaling more than NT$40 billion (US$1.31 billion) generated from the sales of offset-expenditure land in redevelopment zones has been “used secretly” by a few city departments, which have their own revenue, over the past few years.
The surplus fund, which has existed for more than 15 years with no proper use, should be turned over to the city treasury, he said.
Ko agreed with the suggestion.
Wang said that he had at a city council meeting in June reported on poor living conditions at the Harmony Home Foundation Taiwan’s Wenshan Branch, which he called overcrowded.
The branch is a shelter for young children of foreign workers and pregnant foreign workers.
Ko at the time agreed to visit the shelter with him and said that the space was indeed too small for 72 people, Wang said, adding that the number grew to 97 in July and is now at 111.
The remains of five children who died at the shelter were not properly dealt with, he added.
Wang said that the Taipei City Police Department, the Department of Social Welfare and the Taipei Mortuary Services Office have given him conflicting information on how the deaths were handled, accusing the city government of neglecting foreigners’ human rights.
Ko said that he had placed the shelter issue on a monitoring list, but admitted that he did not follow up on the number of people living there.
The records taken by various departments can be inaccurate, Ko said, adding that he agrees that should be improved.
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