Claims of back-room deals surface in rail project

In a dramatic development, fears of bid-rigging in the controversial CKS International Airport-Taipei rail link project appeared to be confirmed yesterday, as allegations of bribe attempts, secret recordings and back-room dealings surfaced.

Two Chinese-language newspapers, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) and the China Times, reported yesterday on scandals involving the troubled project.

The Liberty Times report said that an official from one of the companies that had sought to bid on the project had obtained an audio tape about how other potential bidders made an agreement to divvy up the spoils of the contract.

According to the report, the businessman made the recording and handed it over to investigators.

In a similar story with a different twist, the China Times also reported on the existence of a secret recording. In that article, one of the potential bidders for the contract was said to possess a voice recording of a bribery demand from government officials.

Officials from the Taiwan High Court's Black Gold Investigation Center (黑金中心) -- independent prosecutors assigned to investigate allegations of government corruption -- had not returned calls as of press time last night.

The reports came as the deadline for bids passed yesterday at 10am. Three companies, the German firm Siemens, the French firm Alstom (in cooperation with the engineering firm CTCI Corp [中鼎]) and the Japanese firm Itochu -- which represents Kawasaki -- tendered their bids prior to the deadline. Only Kawasaki had appeared when the initial tender was due on Sept. 7, as questions about the safety of the project's specifications came to light.

Alstom said that the reason it did not meet the initial tender deadline was because it had difficulty translating the thousands of pages of documents necessary to make the bid.

Siemens offered no explanation for why it had previously not bid.

Meanwhile, officials from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications cast aspersions on the media reports.

Vice Minister of Transportation Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒) told reporters that "the fact that three companies bid on the project proves that there is no possibility of corruption in the deal."

The latest developments are the latest in a series of problems for the rail-link project, which in its first manifestation was begun in 1997, only to be canceled because of cost overruns and mismanagement in 2003. In its present incarnation, the project suffered its first major setback earlier this month, when only one company showed up to bid for tender by the original deadline.

The Bureau of High Speed Rail is expected to decide within three to four weeks who will receive the contract.