Former Taiwan Water Corp (TWC) chairman Hsu Hsiang-kun (徐享崑) was indicted on Monday on corruption charges, including accepting a bribe of NT$5 million (US$166,800) to help secure a project contract.
According to the indictment by the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office, Kintech Technology Co of Greater Taichung won the bid for a NT$900 million contract in April 2002 to install advanced water purification equipment at two TWC water treatment plants in the city.
However, the equipment at the Kaotan and Weng-Gongyuan water treatment plants failed a quality test in November 2003, the indictment stated.
After negotiations, TWC and Kintech signed a supplementary contract in November 2004, requiring Kintech to fix the problems by the end of the year, it said.
When Kintech’s water purification installations again failed a quality test in 2005, TWC sent a legal attest letter to Kintech terminating the contract.
In July 2005, a senior executive at Kintech allegedly paid NT$5 million in cash to Hsu, who had been appointed TWC chairman, in exchange for a promise to help the company gain another chance to complete the project.
When Hsu took office as TWC chairman in September that year, he directed his subordinates to negotiate with Kintech and help settle the dispute, the indictment said.
After several rounds of negotiations, TWC agreed in April 2006 to give Kintech one year to correct the problems, and the water purification installations eventually passed the quality test, it said.
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