Accusing the Taipei City Government of wasting taxpayers’ money on the provision of poor wireless services to citizens, Taipei City councilors yesterday urged the city government to stop calling for tenders because the money for the project was designated for relief work.
“While the city plans to earmark NT$145 million [US$84.9 million] for wireless services, NT$79.5 million of that comes from the city government’s ‘second reserve fund,’ which is reserved for emergency relief,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) said.
Citing the Budget Act (預算法), Chien said the City Council must be notified if the amount exceeds NT$50 million. The council is yet to reconvene, let alone review the budget request, she said, adding that the city government risked violating the budget code.
The wireless service is so slow few people want to use it because they can only send and receive e-mail and not download or upload video, she said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) asked the Control Yuan to step in and conduct an investigation.
Instead of using the money on providing poor wireless services, Lee said it could have been used to help earthquake victims in Japan.
Lee said the project was first proposed in 2004 by then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
“It is a failure,” he said. “Not many people want to use the service because it is so slow and it is only available at certain places and for a certain length of time.”
Lee said there was nothing wrong in realizing Ma’s campaign promise. However, he was against seeing one particular company benefit from the project he described as “a joke” and “a disaster.”
Independent Taipei City Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) said no one would oppose the city providing free wireless services. However, such services must be useful for the general public and the money spent on them must be reviewed by the City Council.
Chen added that he did not understand why the city government wanted to spend so much money on providing WiFly services when WiMax and 3G are available.
Huang Kuen-huang (黃坤煌) of the city government’s Department of Information Technology said it is a global trend for governments to provide wireless services for the convenience of their people.
Huang said proper procedure had been followed in using the “second reserve fund.”
Huang said in 2004 the city awarded the nine-year contract to Q-ware Communications Co (安源科技), an affiliate of the nation’s No. 3 telecoms operator Far EasTone Telecommunications Co, to provide the WiFly service.
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