Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday remained low key about an inconclusive investigation by the city into questionable expenditures for the Xinsheng Overpass reconstruction project, urging the public to wait for the result of a legal inquiry into the controversy.
Hau said his government “put its heart and soul into the probe” and would make public the results once the interviews were concluded.
While Hau had said the city would conclude the investigation in two weeks, the report was issued on Saturday, one week earlier than promised.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Hau said this was made possible because investigators had finished speaking with the 14 city employees believed to have been involved in the matter, while the contractor, Join Engineering Consultants (昭凌工程顧問), had declined to send officials for questioning.
While the report contained very little new findings, the city referred three city employees to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for investigation, as the task force headed by Hau was unable to substantiate their claims.
Preliminary findings announced by the task force last week showed that the contractor shared a large part of the blame for the overcharges, which ran in the millions of dollars, for a beautification project.
The three city officials insist they did nothing wrong and denied the contractor’s claims that they instructed the company to raise the overall budget to facilitate the bidding process.
Dismissing allegations that the three officials were scapegoats, Hau said there would be “no limit” to the probe and that the entire process was open and transparent. With the three officials talking to prosecutors in the investigation, Hau said the truth would soon come out and the public would also understand that the city government did its best to get to the bottom of the matter.
Hau said that as long as he focused on his municipal responsibilities and the flora expo, his popularity would gradually recover.
Hau made the remarks after attending a rally with the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate for Sinbei City, former vice premier Eric Chu (朱立倫), at KMT headquarters.
The pair said that if elected, they would work together to clean up the Tamsui River and renovate areas along the riverbank. They promised to earmark a five-year, NT$50 billion (US$1.6 billion) budget to turn the Tamsui River basin into “a second Manhattan.”
Yesterday’s event was the third time in as many months that the pair announced the same plan in a joint campaign activity.
Hau, meanwhile, accused his Democratic Progressive Party opponent, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), of being reluctant to clean up the Tamsui River when Su was Taipei County commissioner.
Hau said he once visited Su, asking him to help clean up the river, but Su turned down his proposal without giving a reason.
Hau said he was happy to have worked with outgoing Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) on the matter, adding that water quality in the Tamsui River was the best in 30 years.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
‘REALLY PROUD’: Nvidia would not be possible without Taiwan, Huang said, adding that TSMC would be increasing its capacity by 100 percent Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday praised and lightly cajoled his major Taiwanese suppliers to produce more to help power strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI), capping a visit to the country of his birth, where he has been mobbed by adoring fans at every step. Speaking at an impromptu press conference in the rain outside a Taipei restaurant, where he had hosted suppliers for a “trillion-dollar dinner,” named after the market capitalization of those firms attending, Huang said this would be another good year for business. “TSMC needs to work very hard this year because I need a lot
RSS