A multibillion NT dollar opera house under construction in Taichung has drawn accusations from opposition party lawmakers of cost overruns and other problems with the bidding process.
Construction of the NT$3.6 billion (US$117.6 million) futuristic Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, located in central Taichung City, began in 2008 after renowned Japanese architect Toyo Ito won an international design competition in 2005. The 2,000-capacity opera house is expected to open in its doors in December 2013.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said on Wednesday that a number of key -procedures were skipped during the bidding process, adding that the city government may have falsified documents, illegally benefited contractors and engaged in graft.
“Some contractors working on the project are doing so illegally, but have not been fined. This is happening as we speak,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said.
The most prominent of the many problems outlined by the DPP include the city government failing to announce in a public notice the winner of the contract. Only two years later, when payments started being made, were the results made public, Kuan said, pointing to documents compiled by the DPP.
“They were basically already making payments without first giving a public notice ... This is a clear violation of the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法),” she said.
Ito’s design team is the third group to work on the opera house, located next to the newly built Taichung City Hall. Prior to this, the opera house was handled as part of the ambitious New Civic Center Project and then, after that stalled, the Guggenheim Foundation Project.
Concerning the Guggenheim project, Kuan said the city government signed a preliminary contract and paid the group US$2 million without first holding a review over its clauses or looking at other prices. The practice, which included signing the contract within three hours of receiving it, could also be illegal under the Government Procurement Act, she said.
In addition, the various construction delays may have cost the city about NT$93 million, she said.
The opera house, along with the City Hall building, is a key part of Taichung Mayor Jason Hu’s (胡志強) re-election bid next month.
The campaign of his opponent, DPP candidate Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), said the allegations showed it was clear that Hu had illegally benefited city contractors.
Hu said he welcomed an investigation by prosecutors into alleged wrongdoing, but until then, the accusations were nothing more than “political saliva” (a local term for rumors) and he would not respond.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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