Bidding for link to CKS Airport to start all over

The long-delayed CKS International Airport-Taipei rail link is expected to take another step forward today when the Bureau of High Speed Rail once again asks for bids for the multi-billion dollar project.

The retender marks the second time this month that the bureau will seek proposals from major international companies to build the controversial rail system. The initial tender, on Sept. 7, failed dismally after only one company -- Itochu, which represents the Japanese firm Kawasaki -- bid for the project after the Canadian company Bombardier raised questions about the safety of the railway's design specifications.

German firm Siemens and the Japanese company Mitsubishi had also expressed interest in the project, but neither showed up that day after the safety concerns came to light.

Contracts

In accordance with Article 48 of the Government Procurement Act, contracts cannot be awarded unless there are "three or more qualified suppliers submitting their tenders" to the relevant authorities.

However, if the initial tender fails, the Act does allow for contracts to be awarded even if only one supplier makes a bid -- raising obvious questions about fairness and transparency when dealing with a NT$26 billion (US$812.5 million) contract with a high political profile.

"Why would only one company bid on a project like this? Simple. Because all of the other companies know who the contract has been engineered for, so they don't even bother trying," said one official with a British company, who asked not to be named. "The lack of transparency in the procurement process is a real problem."

Even some politicians have begun questioning the fairness of the government's procurement processes.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Peter Lin (林進興) told the Chinese-language China Times newspaper that he believed if only one bidder showed up for this contract and later received it, it was evidence of bid-rigging.

Despite reports in Japanese-language media that the former head of the bureau, Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒) -- now the vice minister of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications -- had traveled to Kobe, Japan in April to meet with officials from Kawasaki, some lawmakers are adamant that there have been no under-the-table deals.

Concern

People First Party Legislator Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和) said that there was no need to change the tender proposal, but expressed concern that today's second tender will again be boycotted by international suppliers, according to an article last week in the China Times.

The CKS-Taipei rail link project was first attempted in 1997 -- and canceled in 2003 due to cost overruns and mismanagement -- and it is hardly the lone example of a project beset by delays and scandals.

The ministry is struggling to move forward with several critical infrastructure projects that have been dubbed priorities for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his administration.

Large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Taipei-Kaohsiung High Speed Rail project, the Kaohsiung MRT and the CKS-Taipei link have been mired in a storm of controversy since their inception.

Embarrassment

For example, the high speed rail link -- dubbed "Taiwan's Bullet" by the media -- recently suffered an embarrassing setback when it was revealed that it would not be completed by its Oct. 31 deadline.