The corruption allegations related to the construction of a cable car system in Taipei's Beitou District sparked a blame game between the central and Taipei City governments yesterday.
The case, which saw the detention of high-ranking government officials including the Vice Minister of the Interior (MOI) Yen Wan-chin (
While the Executive Yuan on Thursday expressed its regret over Yen's involvement in the case and accepted his resignation, Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) yesterday said the Taipei City Government, which is the supervising agency for the project, should share responsibility as Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) allowed his staff members to alter the project so that it would not require environmental impact assessments.
blame
"We are not trying to shift the blame. We just want to clarify the issue," Cheng said at the Executive Yuan.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-chin (
Ma yesterday dismissed the accusations, and reiterated the city government's innocence as the construction areas involved are all within the boundaries of Yangmingshan National Park, which comes under the authority of the Yangmingshan National Park Administration.
"The prosecutors would have come after the city government already if any of our officials were involved ? [The DPP] is just trying to drag us into this," Ma said after presiding over a municipal meeting at Taipei City Hall.
Ma repeated that the original cable car project, which was approved by the Executive Yuan in 1995, included the construction of a cable car system from Qinshui Park (
approval
The project, Ma said, did not require an environmental impact assessment, and it was the interior ministry that decided to add a training dormitory and hot springs hotel to the project when it issued a bulletin announcing approval of the project.
"The ministry asked us whether or not the construction of resort hotels required assessments after issuing the license to the contractor this June. This was quite strange because it was not for us to decide if an assessment was needed," Ma said.
Lee Shu-chuan (
While Ma insisted the city government followed legal procedures, Hsu accused the city government of being "too passive" as the supervisory agency.
"The department should have questioned the contractors and the ministry when they tried to build resort hotels," she said, adding that the city government was still responsible in a supervisory capacity, if not legally.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS