Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has pledged to donate to charity all proceeds from farmland he part owns that had been illegally used as a parking lot.
Ko’s campaign chief of staff Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday at a news conference said that the Hsinchu City plot of land co-owned by Ko was originally farmland, as shown in an 2006 aerial photograph.
After the infraction was revealed by the media, Ko on Thursday said that on Tuesday he asked someone to check on the land and they found an unspecified number of tour buses parked on it.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
The Hsinchu City Government on Thursday said that it would send Ko a notice asking him to make the necessary improvements to bring the land’s use into line with its designated agricultural status or be fined NT$60,000 to NT$300,000 (US$1,923 to US$9,614).
“The original owner did some landscaping work in June 2007, and then in September turned it into a parking lot. This took place before Ko and the other co-owners purchased it,” Huang said.
“It was the original owner who in 2008 signed a contract with a real-estate company to rent out the farmhouse on the plot on an annual basis,” she said. “Each year Ko’s family receives NT$6,250 from the firm. Then in 2020 a tour bus company signed an agreement to pay rent at NT$6,729 per month, but that deal has now been terminated.”
Ko has been paid NT$1.05 million for the farmhouse and NT$198,000 for the parking lot, which he will donate to Hsinchu City Department of Social Affairs for charity work, she said.
The work to restore the parking lot back to farmland began yesterday morning with Ko having authorized TPP Hsinchu City chapter interim director Lee Kuo-chang (李國墇) to supervise the operation.
Accompanied by reporters and camera crews, Lee oversaw the operation to break up the asphalt, and clear away pieces of concrete and brick, metal fragments and what looked like rubble from a construction site.
“All the excavated material is to be transported to a landfill. The priority is to restore the land back to farmland,” Lee said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Hsinchu City Council caucus convenor Chen Chien-ming (陳建名) alleged that Ko had broken the law.
“Today the excavation work dug up large volumes of construction materials and industrial debris, which contravenes the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法). A criminal prosecution could proceed if the co-owners permitted illegal dumping on farmland,” Chen said. “It is not so easy to evade legal responsibility, as Ko is trying to do by promising to donate to charity.”
The DPP demanded a judicial investigation.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun and Hong Mei-hsiu
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
TRANSPORT DISRUPTION: More than 100 ferry services were suspended due to rough seas and strong winds, and eight domestic flights were canceled, the ministry said Tropical Storm Wipha intensified slightly yesterday as it passed closest to Taiwan, dumping more than 200mm of rain in Hualien and Taitung counties, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 11am, Wipha was about 210km southwest of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and was moving west-northwest at 27km per hour (kph). The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 101kph and gusts reaching 126kph, with a 150km radius of strong winds, CWA data showed. Wipha’s outer rainbands began sweeping across Taiwan early yesterday, delivering steady rainfall in the east and scattered showers in other regions, forecasters said. More heavy rain was expected, especially in the eastern