Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday issued an ultimatum to Farglory Group (遠雄集團), saying that it has three months to comply with the Taipei City Government’s terms for continuing work on the construction of the Taipei Dome, before he moves to dissolve the build-operate-transfer contract with the developer.
Ko made the remarks during a report to the Taipei City Council, announcing a list of his demands to Farglory to be filed on Monday next week, comprising of seven safety-related items and 39 contract revisions.
The safety standard demands are to include a mandate for new safety evaluations of the site, as well as reductions in the size of the stadium’s commercial zone and its maximum occupancy, while the city also wants contractual revisions be made to 39 items that the Control Yuan had designated as improper.
Photo: CNA
In his report to city councilors, Ko also issued an apology to Taipei residents, saying: “I am sorry; I understand the public’s frustration, but I must insist on solving the situation now, so as to prevent the same problems from happening again.”
The city government had filed more than 300 documents to negotiate the continuation of the project in good faith, but Farglory spurned the city’s efforts by responding with delaying tactics and treating the dispute as an “essay-writing contest,” Ko said.
The Taiwan Architecture and Building Center (台灣建築中心) had not issued its approval of the stadium after a year-long fire safety evaluation of the structure and Farglory had failed to follow the approved blueprints, he said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Ko said that the city faces many challenges, including the “extremely unfavorable” terms of the original contract that enable Farglory to pay no more than NT$3 million (US$91,866) for not fulfilling its obligations, while mandating the city government to buy back the contract at an evaluated market price.
Ko said that the nation’s justice system has proved “erratic” and “unworthy of public trust,” in punishing bribery with a NT$200 million fine rather than a prison sentence, in an apparent snipe at Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄), a former Farglory chairman who was convicted of bribery with his sentence suspended for five years and was fined NT$200 million, characterizing the ruling as “putting a price on justice.”
In response to questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠), Ko said the city would not go to arbitration for the dispute, adding: “We will unilaterally dissolve the contract. If [Chao] is unhappy, he is free to litigate.”
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Ko told Republican Party City Councilor Hsu Shih-hsun (徐世勳) that in the absence of a resolution satisfactory to the city government, demolishing the stadium “remains an option.”
Farglory Dome Co general-manager Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) accused Ko of using public safety standards in a manner that is “tantamount to blackmail” and of violating the principles of “a nation of laws” by “trampling on a private enterprise.”
The city government has the right to unilaterally dissolve any freely entered contract, but Taipei residents should know that the ensuing litigation would result in liabilities that are substantially greater than the mutually agreed sum that was stipulated in the original contract, Yang said.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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