Taipei councilors yesterday accused the city government's spokesman King Pu-tsung (
DPP city councilors Lo Tsung-sheng (
The councilors said that King obviously favored the winning bidder, Funtastic International Inc (
"They were obviously favoring Funtastic," Lo said.
"It seems that the city government cares more about the fame of the producers than the content of the product."
Lo also said he doubted the nature of Funtastic's winning bid.
"We want to know why on earth the company which failed to provide sufficient bidding documents still won the bidding," he said.
Bidders were required to submit a set of proposals, including the production timetable, production fee, design idea, ultimate outcome and individual background information on the team members.
Funtastic failed to do so at first and provided all details later.
"The supplementary document was supposed to be turned in before Dec. 22, but there was no way we could check because it was not dated," Lo said.
The six 30-second commercials -- which cost NT$3.6 million -- are now showing on three of Taiwan's terrestrial TV stations and are slated to show in movie theaters in August.
Lo questioned a switch in the judging criteria, which were changed from just an examination of the script to -- for the first time -- looking at the production team's record.
Councilor Hsu accused King of intentionally favoring and profiting Funtastic by bloating the production fee from the previous NT$400,000 per commercial to NT$600,000.
According to Hsu, the production costs for each film during the previous administration ranged from between NT$400,000 and NT$500,000.
Councilor Chen called on the city's Department of Anti-Corruption (
However, King was unrepentant. He said the new bidding process had been a success and that it would bear scrutiny if investigated.
King told reporters he would take full responsibility if he was found guilty of violating the law.
"Legality doesn't worry me because what I've been doing is correct and legal," he said.
"What worries me, however, is that the incident may scare off future companies who value social charity more than individual profits."
According to King, Funtastic usually charges between NT$1.5 million and NT$10 million for producing a commercial, but was willing to reduce its charges to NT$600,000.
King said that he was happy with the new bidding process and was satisfied with the finished product.
He said the city would continue with the bidding structure despite the controversy.
"Don't you think it makes more sense to look at the production team's record than to screen the scripts first?" he said.
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