The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Taipei City Government over its construction of the problem-ridden Wenshan-Neihu MRT line, demanding that officials be held accountable.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was mayor of Taipei City when the line was built, was cleared of any administrative wrongdoing in the design and construction of the project.
The Control Yuan held a meeting in February to deliberate a motion to censure the city government, but rejected the motion due to lack of evidence.
Control Yuan member Ger Yeong-kuang (葛永光), who is in charge of the case, said that they did not make any major revisions to the investigation report, apart from including more material.
Chao Jung-yao (趙榮耀), another Control Yuan member, said the city government had failed to evaluate the ability of Bombardier, the firm contracted to build the MRT line, to undertake the project.
LOWER STANDARDS
“First of all, the city government lowered the standards so that Bombardier was able to qualify as a bidder,” Chao said. “However, the incidents that occurred on the line were mainly caused by Bombardier's network system.”
The Control Yuan members also blamed the city government for rushing to open the line after only 13 weeks of trials.
“It was formally opened when the system was not stable, which meant that the city government did not conduct a thorough trial operation,” Ger said.
Instead of summoning Ma for questioning, the Control Yuan members “gathered for tea” with him in late January to gain an understanding of the policy-making process for the design and construction of the project.
In response to the censure, Taipei City Government spokesperson Chao Hsin-ping (趙心屏) said the city government respected the Control Yuan’s decision, adding that it would seek accountability and compile a list of people who should be punished after it receives the Control Yuan’s formal letter.
IMPROVEMENTS
Chao said the city government had spared no effort in ensuring the quality of the line, and the stability of the line had greatly improved after it suspended the service on weekends in August last year for inspections.
“We will handle the issue according to the regulations, and we will look into the responsibilities of those who should be blamed whether they are government officials or retired,” she said at Taipei City Hall.
She declined to say whether Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) should take the blame for the problematic decision-making process.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
RSS