Engineering professionals and lawmakers yesterday established a monitoring alliance to check post-earthquake reconstruction projects, as scrutiny of demolished buildings has revealed a high frequency of collapse among public facilities.
Members of the alliance argue that monitoring is crucial to block bid-rigging by gangsters and unscrupulous politicians, which they say is the reason why the construction quality of public facilities is so poor.
"After a two week examination tour of the disaster areas, we have a very deep feeling that the quality of public buildings is vastly inferior to private ones," Liou Gin-show (
Existing building standards for public facilities such as schools, hospitals, police stations, fire departments and government offices are more stringent than private sector buildings and should be able to withstand earthquake shocks better.
"However, we have found that more public buildings collapsed than private ones," Liou said.
Official statistics show over 700 schools were damaged in the quake, including 43 that were completely destroyed. Around 61 percent of the schools in Nantou County were damaged, and the damage rate in Taichung City, Taichung County and Changhua County were registered at 59, 46 and 44 percent, respectively.
In addition, 13 bridges have collapsed, and 10 fire departments have been rated as hazardous.
Liou said public construction quality would not be as bad if standard contracting procedures were enforced, but under the present emergency decree these procedures can be skipped.
The emergency decree, which supersedes the Procurement Law and Budget Law, has been promulgated by the government to bypass the existing legal restrictions and speed up the reconstruction process.
DPP lawmakers argue that the removal of legal restrictions will allow the ruling party to use the profitable reconstruction projects as leverage to buy over grassroots politicians -- who are traditionally a major support base of the KMT during elections and are known for their close connection with gang-sters.
While reports concerning gangster related construction companies using violence to rig bids are common, the contracting of construction projects is an opportunity for unscrupulous politicians to peddle influence and gain kickbacks.
Some politicians are owners or investors in construction companies.
"We've already smelled the attempts by gangsters and politicians to monopolize the reparation work of hydraulic and water conservation facilities and highways in the disaster areas," DPP legislator Tsai Huang-lang (1/22?瑯), from Nantou County, said.
Independent legislator Chen Chen-sheng (3祚??, who is also from Nantou, said that political interference is obvious in the repair of Ming Chu Bridge (|?j橋) in Mingchien township in Nantou County.
"The military was about to start the reparation work when a certain construction company showed up and stopped it, claiming that it had won the bid for the bridge's reconstruction," Chen said.
Chiu Tai-san (邱??T), a DPP lawmaker and former prosecutor, said it is a reasonable suspicion that mafia and money politics have already eroded the big reconstruction cake, which is worth at least NT$100 billion, especially as the KMT works to consolidate its grassroots support to win next March's presidential election.
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