No concrete conclusions were reached as the Taipei City Government yesterday concluded an investigation into problematic purchase plans for the Xinsheng Overpass reconstruction project one week ahead of schedule, leaving unanswered many questions about how the budget was used and possible illegal actions by civil servants.
In a press conference yesterday afternoon, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the task force, which he formed last week, found that the project’s bidding process was problematic, and that officials in the New Construction Department could be responsible for the overpriced purchase plans.
However, because the task force only has administrative investigation rights, it could not force the contractor, Join Engineering Consultants, to come in for questioning, which left it unable to proceed further with the investigation.
“We are unable to clarify some questions and doubts because of the limited administrative investigation rights, and therefore we have forwarded all evidence and related information to prosecutors for further investigation,” Hau told the press conference at Taipei City Hall.
The investigation report repeated most of the preliminary findings the task force announced last week, accusing the contractor again of failing to go through a price comparison procedure before making purchase plans.
The report said the contractor over-billed the city government in 120 purchase plans for the project, which has an overall budget of NT$1.3 billion (US$40.8 million). In one case, the company billed the city government more than NT$425 for each bulb of an evergreen vine that normally costs about NT$100.
The task force also questioned officials involved in the project, including former commissioner of the New Construction Department Huang Hsi-hsung (黃錫薰), former chief engineer of the department Chang Li-yen (章立言) and former section chief Chen Chih-sheng (陳智盛), about possible negligence in the process and the possibility that bribes were involved.
The three all insisted they had done nothing wrong and denied the contractor’s previous accusations that the department instructed them to raise the overall budget in order to facilitate the bidding process.
Yang Shih-chin (楊石金), head of the city’s Department of Ethics, who is also a member of the task force, said the task force reported the three officials to prosecutors for investigation since it was unable to substantiate their claims.
Yang denied the involvement of any higher-ranking officials in the problematic project, and declined to give more details.
Yesterday’s investigation report came out one week earlier than Hau had promised, but contains very little in new findings. The Hau administration has sought to resolve the dispute surrounding the project, which dates back to earlier this month when several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors began to raise questions about the price of the flowers and plants purchased for the bridge that runs alongside the Taipei International Flora Expo’s main site.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Huang Hsian-chun (黃向群) yesterday accused the city government of failing to offer a clear explanation and shifting all the responsibily to the contractor and three civil servants.
“Apparently the task force is serving as a cover for the city government’s problematic handling of the project, and the three officials are nothing but scapegoats used by Hau’s team to build a firewall against further disputes,” he said.
While failing to answer most of the questions, Hau promised to improve the city government’s budget review mechanism and continue the investigation of other construction projects.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS