Legislators serving on the Sci-Tech and Information Committee questioned National Science Council (NSC) Minister Chen Chien-jen (陳健仁) yesterday over a series of issues involving the National Space Organization (NSPO) satellite program, or ARGO.
NSPO director general Lance Wu (吳作樂) was detained last week on suspicion of illegally profiting from the NT$900 million (US$27 million) contract signed with the Vancouver-based contractor MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA).
The contract was to assist the NSPO in building a satellite and a launch vessel. It was also in charge of certifying the reliability of the ARGO project to ensure that the Taiwan-manufactured satellite was qualified for RapidEye, a satellite mission funded by a German firm using satellites to image large areas of land at high resolution.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The project was initiated by MDA and the NSPO also signed a contract with STI, a European firm, to provide technical support related to the construction of small-size satellites.
The contract with MDA, however, was terminated last November after the firm failed to secure an export license from the Canadian government.
In yesterday's question and answer session, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislator Liao Pen-yen (廖本煙) said that ARGO was originally supposed to be a project completely built by Taiwan.
The NSPO, however, outsourced technical support to MDA in a restricted bidding process. Liao said he doubted that most of the project infrastructure was actually built by Taiwan researchers.
Liao also questioned how STI was able to secure such an expensive contract from the NSPO, as he said it was a one-man firm with capital of less than NT$8 million.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Tsao Shou-min (曹壽民) asked why the contract was given to MDA in the first place.
"The fact that MDA was in charge of certifying ARGO does not mean that it should necessarily be the manufacturer as well," Tsao said. "The contract could be given to someone else."
Tsao further pointed out that the NSPO had agreed to pay MDA a down payment before the company had been granted an export license. The down payment was approximately NT$200 million.
Though the NSPO claimed that the nation has not suffered any loss, as MDA had returned the down payment following the cancelation of the contract, Tsao said that did not take into account the loss of interest on the money.
"This shows that the internal control mechanisms at the NSC and the National Applied Research Laboratories are not functioning," he said.
In response, Chen said the NSPO was under the administration of the private National Applied Research Laboratories, and the NSC cannot directly intervene in its internal affairs.
The council will evaluate and reinforce its internal control mechanisms, he said.
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