Ma Ying-jeou admits to politician-lobbying effort

Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said for the first time that lawmakers and Taipei City Councilors have been involved in lobbying on behalf of companies tendering for the supply of carriages for the Taipei MRT, but stressed that the public's interests and safety would be the priorities in the bid selection process.

"There have been all sorts of concerns registered by lawmakers and Taipei City Councilors," Ma said, adding, "We are not surprised that lawmakers and city councilors are very interested and concerned about a procurement project worth such a huge amount of money."

Ma was answering reporters' question as to whether lawmakers and city councilors had been involved in the lobbying for the NT$21.5 billion project.

But, he said, the Department of Rapid Transit Systems "knows the whole tendering process very well, and will stand firm on making the public's interests and the construction quality priorities in the selection of suppliers.

"Usually the companies wishing to acquire a contract will use all sorts of approaches to lobby in order to get the bid, but as long as the approaches are legal, there is no way to say that one form of lobbying is right and another is wrong," Ma added.

He did not identify any of the lawmakers or city councilors involved.

The multi-billion NT dollar procurement project for the Taipei MRT EMU (electric multiple unit) with 321 carriages on the currently under construction Hsin-chuang Line, Lu-chou Line, and the Nankang and Hsintien Line extensions, is the biggest city procurement during Ma's second term as mayor.

A local Chinese-language newspaper yesterday reported that companies from Germany, France, Canada, the US, Japan and South Korea are competing for the contract.

It also said that some opposition lawmakers who are former members of the National Assembly and city councilors from the pan-blue camp had been enthusiastically lobbying for the contract and had sought to persuade the rapid transit department to award the contract to the lowest bidder, a move which, it said, is thought likely to benefit the South Korean company which is particularly competitive on price.

But the director of the rapid transit department Frank L.S. Fan (范良) yesterday said the tendering criteria and process have been established to involve a balance of quality and price factors.

He said that each bid is divided into three tenders -- a qualification tender, a technical specification tender and a price tender, which must be opened in that order.

The department's System Wide Electrical and Mechanical Project Office will start to accept submissions of tenders from companies from Jan. 28 until April 21, 10am this year.

The department will then announce the bidding result on June 30 this year.