Chen Hsin-yu (陳信瑜) on Sunday last week resigned as commissioner of the Taipei Department of Labor, two days after being charged with corruption by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has not tapped a replacement for Chen, who was investigated in connection to discrepancies in the records of an executive slush fund.
Prosecutors are seeking to charge her for allegedly contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) and forgery laws of the Criminal Code.
Photo: CNA
Complaints were first brought against Chen by Taipei city councilors, who accused her of improperly sharing confidential information about city residents with Ko and Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊).
Huang is the Taiwan People’s Party’s candidate for Taipei mayor in the Nov. 26 local elections.
The Chinese-language Mirror Media cited prosecutors as saying that Chen spent NT$50,000 from the fund to buy wine from a company linked to her husband in four separate purchases, two of which exceeded the one-time spending limit of NT$10,000.
The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that prosecutors found the record of communications between Chen and Ko and Huang had been deleted from Chen’s cellphone, arousing suspicion that privileged data guidelines were breached.
Chen was released after posting bail of NT$200,000 following a court hearing on July 27.
Chen announced her resignation during a city councilors’ meeting two days after her court appearance, but maintained her innocence, saying that the financial discrepancies stemmed from “administrative mistakes” and not malfeasance.
On the sidelines of a city hall meeting on Sunday last week, she said that her resignation does not imply an admission of guilt and she intends to “defend [her] good name to the end.”
As a successor has not been appointed, Chen attended a meeting on Tuesday, telling reporters that she intends to stay on the job until a hand-off can take place.
Asked about the implications of her case for Huang’s electoral campaign, Chen said: “I am not the candidate.”
Huang on Sunday last week said that the city government has full faith in Chen’s innocence, but it would respect the results of the investigation.
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