A dispute between the Ministry of Education and school representatives from a school reconstruction project in Taiwan's 921 earthquake zone was apparently triggered when local interest groups began to worry that they would miss out on the project's lucrative profits, lawmakers said yesterday.
"The root of the conflict between the two parties is obvious: local interests groups [in the Taichung area] are upset that they may lose the bidding for an upcoming lucrative deal," said DPP lawmaker Wang Shih-hsun (王世勛), referring to the campus reconstruction project of Tungshi Vocational High School (東勢高工) in Taichung County.
Local ties
The interests groups, according to Wang, are Lee Ping-feng
(李炳豐), director of the school's parent's association, and KMT lawmaker Yang Wen-hsin (楊文欣), a Taichung County representative.
Lee, accompanied by Yang, filed complaints on Tuesday with the legislature and the Control Yuan, the country's supreme watchdog body.
They alleged that Vice Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) and her husband Chang Fu-chung (張富忠) attempted to collect profits out of the school reconstruction project by intervening in the formation of a committee which was to select architects and construction companies favored by the ministry.
According to Wang, a lawmaker also from Taichung, Lee and Yang come from the same family and have deep connections with construction firms in the region, so "it is natural that they are protesting against the education ministry because it may spoil their original plan -- to win the bid for the school's reconstruction."
Yang is the vice president of the Changyi Group (長億集團), a renowned construction company, and Lee is his uncle.
Wang said it was commonly known that they took charge of many construction projects in the Taichung area.
"For an immense project valued at NT$860 million, the education ministry is only doing their job to ensure everything follows legal procedure," Wang said, adding that he hoped judicial departments would take immediate action to uncover the truth.
`Ungrounded accusations'
Furious over what he termed "the ungrounded allegations," Chang Fu-chung yesterday told the Taipei Times that what Fan had done at the ministry was regarded as a stumbling block by those accustomed to profiting from public construction projects.
"We've expected slander from the locals when [Fan] strived to weed out the longstanding unlawful conduct, but we that hope whoever has directed these accusations against us can present their evidence," Chang said.
"If I am found to have interfered with the internal affairs of the education ministry, Fan will immediately resign," he added.
Responding to the criticism, Yang said the reason that Fan and other lawmakers have so enthusiastically linked him with the Changyi Group at this sensitive time was to blur the focus of the issue.
Yang said his group was never engaged in any dealings with the public sector and that the only reason he was involved in the dispute was because the school is situated in his constituency.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
‘COMMITTED TO DETERRENCE’: Washington would stand by its allies, but it can only help as much as countries help themselves, Raymond Greene said The US is committed to deterrence in the first island chain, but it should not bear the burden alone, as “freedom is not free,” American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said in a speech at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s “Strengthening Resilience: Defense as the Engine of Development” seminar in Taipei yesterday. In the speech, titled “Investing Together and a Secure and Prosperous Future,” Greene highlighted the contributions of US President Donald Trump’s administration to Taiwan’s defense efforts, including the establishment of supply chains for drones and autonomous systems, offers of security assistance and the expansion of
RSS