When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors Lee Wen-ying (李文英) and Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) first questioned the price of flowers to decorate the Xinsheng Overpass and connect the project with Taipei International Flora Exposition last week, the Taipei City Government ignored the accusation and made no effort to clarify the issue.
It was not until the purchase plan became a hot topic on political talk shows that the city government began to take the issue more seriously.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) made his first response on Tuesday by revealing the prices of flowers used and saying that the city’s Department of New Construction paid about two times the market price for the flowers. However, Hau defended the incident as merely “administrative negligence” from civil officials, and slammed the DPP for politicizing the issue.
The Hau team’s failure to offer a clear explanation of the matter and thoroughly review the purchase plan presented the DPP with opportunities to issue more attacks, digging out more information to accuse the city government of paying up to 30 times the market price for flowers and turning the incident into a threat to Hau’s re-election bid in November’s special municipality elections.
“The civil servants who oversaw the purchase plans were either blind, or took kickbacks to have paid such ridiculously high prices for flowers. However, I think what’s more ridiculous is the city government’s slow and sloppy responses to the issue,” People First Party Taipei City Councilor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said.
Huang said the Hau team could have stopped the dispute from turning into a crisis if it acknowledged the mistake and launched an investigation into the problematic expenditures immediately.
The city government did not launch an investigation into the matter until six DPP Taipei City councilors filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Hau for negligence of duty.
Hau on Friday offered his apology to the public over the incident, and removed the head of the city’s Public Works Bureau from his post. He also set up a task force to review the purchase plans for the overpass and flora expo.
“We did react to the incident a little too late, but we will face up to the dispute candidly. The city government will not hide the truth, and any officials who are involved in illegal acts will be punished,” he said.
However, Hau’s apology and promise of a thorough investigation failed to impress the public.
According to the latest poll released by the Chinese-language Apple Daily, 64 percent of respondents said they believed Hau would lose votes over the incident. He stood at 43.12 percent in the poll, falling behind his DPP counterpart Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), at 44.68 percent.
The flora expo, a 171-day international event that will open on Nov. 6, will be a key variable for the Taipei mayoral election, which is stated to take place on Nov 27.
Of the NT$9.5 billion (US$296.5 million) budget for the expo, the city government assigned NT$136 million for publicity and promotion, hoping to boost Hau’s approval ratings with the extravaganza.
However, the flower purchase plans for the bridge project, which the DPP insisted was part of the expo project, could become the biggest obstacle for Hau ahead of the election.
“The flora expo is a great chance for Taiwan to show its strength in the horticulture industry, but the general public is not sharing the pride. The overpriced flower purchase plans are making things worse, and the public will think of the expo as an expensive event that city officials tried to benefit from,” New Party Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said.
The Hau team has failed to learn its lessons from past incidents, including the problematic support pillars of the Maokong Gondola and the frequent malfunctions of the Wenshan-Neihu MRT Line. Hau and top city officials shrugged off concerns about the projects at first, only acknowledging negligence after the problems grew worse.
A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Hau team has long been a headache for the party, as Hau and his aides have strong opinions on how to handle issues, and ignored the KMT’s instructions on several occasions.
As the KMT cannot afford to lose the mayoral election in Taipei City, where the KMT has been in power for 12 years, the party will take over the issue and instruct the party’s Taipei City council caucus to strengthen cooperation with the Hau team in solving the dispute, he said.
Top party officials, including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — who doubles as KMT chairman — and KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) will step up the efforts to campaign for Hau, he said.
Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a political analyst at National Tung Hua University, said the city government’s poor handling of the incident showed its overconfidence in the Taipei mayoral election.
Hau won the mayoral election by a thin margin four years ago over then-DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), winning just over 10 percent more votes than Hsieh in the pan-blue stronghold.
Hau is fighting a tougher battle this time, as Su has shown rising support in several polls.
Shih said Hau must make the budget plans for the bridge and expo as transparent as possible and devote more effort to organizing a successful flora expo before he can win the re-election.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
A former soldier and an active-duty army officer were yesterday indicted for allegedly selling classified military training materials to a Chinese intelligence operative for a total of NT$79,440. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Chen Tai-yin (陳泰尹) and Lee Chun-ta (李俊達) for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例). Chen left the military in September 2013 after serving alongside then-staff sergeant Lee, now an army lieutenant, at the 21st Artillery Command of the army’s Sixth Corps from 2011 to 2013, according to the indictment. Chen met a Chinese intelligence operative identified as “Wang” (王) through a friend in November
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
The Grand Hotel Taipei has rejected media reports claiming that the hotel had prevented CBS from broadcasting coverage of the Beijing summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on its premises. Media reports alleging that the hotel owner, dissatisfied with CBS’s coverage, prohibited the network from broadcasting political content on the hotel premises, are not true, the hotel said in a statement issued last night. The reports were “inconsistent with how the hotel actually handled the matter,” it said. The hotel said it received a refund request from a
RSS