The Taipei City Government is to continue the Taipei Twin Towers construction project amid ongoing investigations over alleged bribery scandals involving contractors and city officials.
The project has been stalled since its first-priority bidder, a consortium led by Taipei Gateway International Development, failed to provide the performance bond in February.
Taipei City’s Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS) announced on Wednesday that it has completed the review of conditions of second-placed bidder BES Engineering, and will start negotiating a new contract with the company after Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) approves the review.
DORTS Commissioner Tsai Hui-sheng (蔡輝昇) confirmed yesterday that Hau has instructed the department this week to proceed with the bidding procedures as the city government decided not to nullify the project over the indictment of former Taipei City Department of Finance commissioner Chiu Da-chan (邱大展).
“Launching the negotiation with BES Engineering does not guarantee that the city will sign the contract with the company. We will consult with other departments during the negotiation process,” he said.
On the agenda of issues to be addressed in the negotiation process will be the ratio of floor area that the final contractor is allowed to handle.
The company is asking for the rights to sell parts of floor area of the buildings to increase profit, while the DORTS is seeking to set up a maximum floor area ratio that the company can sell.
Pending the negotiations, the city government intends to finalize the list of conditions for a contract and inform the company about the final conditions via formal documents.
The company would then be required to sign the contract within 30 days after receiving the documents, according to the DORTS.
Tsai said if the company refuses to sign the contract, the city will return the NT$130 million (US$4.4 million) bid bond to the company, and Hau will determine whether the city will negotiate a contract with the third-place bidder or nullify the bid.
The city’s decision to proceed with the bidding process came following Chiu’s indictment earlier this month.
He was indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for breach of trust and other charges over alleged misconduct during the bidding process for the project.
Hau has repeatedly vouched for Chiu’s innocence after the bribery allegations surfaced in February.
He has said the city may consider nullifying the bid if the bidding process was found to be illegal.
Taipei City Government Spokesman Chang Chi-chiang (張其強) said the city government has determined that there were no problems during the evaluation of project bidders and the bidding process, and decided to continue negotiating a new contract with the company.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods