Lawmakers of the Chinese Nation-alist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) yesterday launched an attack on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by saying his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government had made an under the table agreement to shortlist specific manufacturers for installing electronic toll systems on Taiwan's freeways.
Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) of the KMT and Pang Chien-kuo (龐建國) of the PFP made the accusation at a news conference at the KMT's legislative office yesterday morning.
They said the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) had selected Efkon, Qfree and Raytheon from a list of seven competing companies on Dec. 24 last year, although none of their products meet the standards set by the ministry.
According to the ministry's schedule, the contract to implement the toll system will be awarded to one of the three shortlisted companies on Feb. 27.
The official contract for the construction will be signed on April 27. The system is slated to be installed at 20 toll stations on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway and the Second Freeway, which was opened on Sunday. Construction is expected to be completed in 2011.
Lee said that one of the ministry's requirements had been that the electronic toll system should have an error margin of less than 0.02 percent. According to Lee Efkon's products have an error margin of 0.795 percent, while Raytheon's have a 5 percent deviation.
Qfree's tender was also accepted, although the company did not provide any information about the error margin of its products, Lee said.
Lee said the three manufacturers had been selected as a result of DPP favoritism, especially in the case of Raytheon.
"Most people don't know that Raytheon is actually a US arms manufacturer whose owner had attended a dinner with Chen during his transit stop in the US last year. We strongly suspect that there was some kind of under-the-table deal between Raytheon and the DPP government," said Lee.
In reaction to Lee's accusations, DPP Lawmaker Chiu Chuei-chen (邱垂貞) said that the KMT chairman should provide more convincing evidence. Chiu said that an investigation of responsible government officials would be held if Lee's accusations turn out to be true.
"As far as I'm concerned, this case is not a done deal yet and the MOTC has not made its final decision on awarding the contract. It is definitely not fair to blame it on the president at this moment," Chiu said.
"However, if there really is a scandal, we will definitely punish the responsible government officials. It has nothing to do with which political party these officials belong to," Chiu said.
According to a press release by the MOTC's Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau, video and audio recordings were made of all the meetings at which decisions were made about the tenders, although these records cannot be made public at present, since no final decision has been taken.
"However, those manufacturers who were not selected are more than welcome to appeal if they feel the result was not fair," the press release read.
The proposed toll system would require motorists to purchase and install infrared transmitters in their vehicles.
Motorists would have to buy pre-paid cards and insert them into the infrared modules. When they pass through a toll station, the receiver will automatically subtract the toll from the card so that motorists would not have to stop to pay the fee.
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