Taipei city councilors yesterday asked Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and former deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) to apologize to city residents for spending up to NT$106 million (US$3.3 million) on this year’s Taipei Expo, while avoiding a city council review.
The Taipei City Government held the event at the Taipei Expo Park from Aug. 27 to Sept. 11.
City councilors in August criticized the Ko administration for using the city’s second reserve fund — about NT$29.6 million from last year and about NT$49 million from this year — to host the event, seemingly to avoid a requirement that an expenditure of NT$50 million or more be approved by the city council.
Photo: CNA
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) on Sunday wrote on Facebook that a Taipei Department of Government Ethics report revealed that in addition to tapping into the second reserve fund, the city government used about NT$12.62 million from 15 city departments on the expo.
Wu, along with DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Taipei City Councilor Chien Shu-pei (簡舒培), yesterday told a news conference in Taipei that Ko’s administration has poor financial discipline, and questioned whether Huang had ordered city departments to organize the expo.
About 105,000 people attended the 12-day event, which was originally to cost about NT$86.1 million, but a city councilor later discovered that the true budget was hidden among the operational budgets of departments and the total cost was as much as NT$169.4 million, Rosalia Wu said.
This year’s Keelung City Expo cost NT$40 million and attracted more than 1 million attendees over 10 days, she said, adding that the Keelung City Government had proposed the budget in the previous year and it passed a city council review.
Wu Pei-yi said the Department of Government Ethics’ report showed that money for the Taipei Expo came from the city’s first and second reserve funds, the annual operational budgets of 15 departments and a special budget to build a new MRT line.
At the news conference, Chien showed a photograph of a note allegedly written by Huang on Oct. 4 last year, instructing a department to use NT$9 million from the city’s second reserve fund for the expo at the direction of the mayor.
Chien asked why Huang skipped the budget allocation review.
She also called the expo a “graduation ceremony” for Ko and a “red carpet” for Huang, who in late August resigned as deputy mayor to run for Taipei mayor as an independent candidate, with Ko’s endorsement.
Huang yesterday said that she wrote the note, but that the instructions were based on prior discussions and made at the direction of Ko.
Formal documents were signed afterward, so the procedure could stand up to scrutiny by the National Audit Office, she added.
The second reserve fund was used because the expo was based on a new city plan formulated after the annual operational budget was allocated, she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator and Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said that city expos should enhance residents’ sense of identity and pride, but Ko’s administration rushed the event, without comprehensive planning, and held it for the sake of hosting it, as if lighting a firework.
He urged Ko and Huang to respond to questions about moving money from the budgets of city departments for the expo.
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