The People First Party (PFP) legislative caucus yesterday vowed to freeze the transportation ministry's budget for Kaohsiung City's mass rapid transit (MRT) system until the "truth" behind last month's labor riot in the city has been uncovered.
The PFP caucus also asked Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to shed some light on how the NT$181.3 billion construction project is contracted out. The build-operate-transfer (BOT) project was contracted out in 2001 when Hsieh was the mayor of Kaohsiung.
Corruption
The PFP's requests came after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus on Monday threatened to establish a legislative commission of inquiry and a truth-finding task force, which would report to the KMT caucus, to expose claims of corruption.
The caucus also requested that Hsieh resign to avoid a conflict of interest in a probe into the riot by foreign laborers.
PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (
He added that the project nonetheless still manages to circumvent the supervision of the legislature.
According to Chang, who is also the director of the party's Policy Center, the central government contributes NT$110 billion, or 79 percent of the total amount, while the Kaohsiung city and county governments will invest NT$40 billion. The Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation (KRTC), will inject NT$30.49 billion, about NT$20 billion of which comes from a bank loan, while the remaining NT$10 billion will be contributed by seven private companies, Chang said.
With such a modest investment, Chang said, the KRTC will get to subcontract out the project and operate the system for 30 years after its completion.
"We'd like to know how the KRTC won the contract, how it is subcontracting work and why the Kaohsiung City Government has failed to appoint anyone on the KRTC's board of directors to supervise the company's operations," he said.
While the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is planning to request NT$16.8 billion to fund the project in next year's budget, Chang said that his caucus will request that the money be frozen until the facts have been uncovered.
Meanwhile, nine KMT Kaohsiung City councilors yesterday filed malfeasance and forgery lawsuits against acting Kaohsiung City mayor Chen Chi-mai (
In the wake of last month's riot, the city has relocated 500 of the Thai workers contributing to the construction of the MRT system to the city's career training center.
The KMT councilors claimed that the center is supposed to serve unemployed citizens, not regular people.
Denouncing the city's report about the riot, which was made available on Tuesday, as unfair, councilors yesterday pledged to form a council-level investigation task force to further investigate the incident.
Conflict of interest
In related news, KMT Legislator Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) yesterday said that acting heads of local governments must avoid conflicts of interest and must not run for the position they are temporarily filling.
Lin proposed to amend the Law on Local Government Systems (
Chen was assigned to take over from Hsieh as Kaohsiung mayor when Hsieh was recruited to the Executive Yuan in February. It is being speculated that Chen plans to run in next year's mayoral election in Kaohsiung.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai