Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday denied that he or his family had any ties to a contractor involved in the Xinsheng Overpass project, adding that he would consider banning the firm from bidding for future projects should it be guilty of corruption.
Hau told the Taipei City Council it was his understanding that Join Engineering Consultants was not a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-run business, and that neither he nor his father, former premier and KMT member Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), had anything to do with the firm.
Hau said he would fully cooperate with prosecutors and investigators and resign should he be found guilty of benefiting Join Engineering or any other companies.
If Join Engineering Consultants were found to be guilty of corruption, Hau said he would consider blacklisting the firm and barring it from future bidding for projects.
Hau was evasive about whether the city would use taxpayers’ money to cover the litigation fees and losses should Join Engineering file a lawsuit and request compensation. He said that if it came down to a court case, he was confident the city would prevail.
Hau said the project did not have to go through him and could be decided by department heads, adding that the administrative procedure was the same when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mayor was in power.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Chen Chia-ming (陳嘉銘), however, said that at the very least, the deputy mayor or secretary-general should have been aware of the project.
Chen also questioned whether the mayor was serious about tackling graft as the task force was led by Hau and staffed with more city officials than outside experts.
DPP Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益) called the task force a “collusion center” designed to get Hau off the hook, adding that some key information in the documents he requested from the city government had been removed.
Hau said the practice existed when former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was Taipei mayor.
DPP councilors engaged in a shouting match with Hau and other officials when Hung and DPP Councilor Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) grumbled about what they called the city’s procrastination in providing them with documents.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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