The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday pledged to have a new village to house Haitian earthquake victims completed within 14 months if transportation problems can be resolved by next month.
“We never failed to keep promises of bilateral cooperation programs with other countries,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Thomas Hou (侯平福) said.
Hou, along with representatives of the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), held a press conference yesterday to respond to media reports questioning the village’s construction delays.
A few weeks after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in January last year that killed more than 300,000 people and left millions more homeless, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) announced several reconstruction projects for Haiti, a diplomatic ally.
Among them was “New Hope Village,” under which Taiwan would provide US$5.5 million from the Red Cross Society and the ministry for the construction of houses for 200 displaced families, two schools, a dormitory for teachers, a health center, at a 379 hectare site provided by the Haitian government.
Construction has yet to begin on New Hope Village, which also includes an agricultural program by the ICDF’s agricultural missions to help settled families develop skills.
Hou dismissed media allegations the government had broken its promise and that the Red Cross Society, the ICDF and the ministry had shirked their responsibilities for the delays.
“The project has been progressing according to our plan,” Hou said, adding that the ministry and the Red Cross had signed a letter of intent in April and that the Red Cross had signed construction contracts last month.
Hou said the project had been hampered by difficulties in transporting construction machinery and building materials to St Michel de l’Atalaye — the site of the project — about 200km away from Port-au-Prince.
A road-construction project was launched in March and is 30 percent complete. If the roads can be completed by next month, the New Hope Village could be completed in 14 months, Hou said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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