An amendment to the Statute for Encouragement of Private Participation in Transportation Infrastructure Projects (獎勵民間參與交通建設條例) has been proposed to authorize the government to take over the nation’s high-speed rail system if it has financial problems and ensure that it can continue without interruption, the Bureau of High Speed Rail said, adding that it is very different from the government seizing private property.
The fate of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) hangs in the balance, as it has an accumulated loss of NT$52.2 billion (US$1.71billion), which amounts to nearly 50 percent of the company’s capital.
Aside from a loan that it has to pay annually to banks, the company has also planned to buy back preferred stocks worth NT$50 billion.
Last month, Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) spoke of measures to save the debt-ridden company from going bankrupt, including reducing capital and later increasing it, and extending the concession period.
In case the financial improvement plan fails to be approved by the Legislative Yuan, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications proposed the amendment to the statute as the legal basis for the government to take over the high-speed rail system.
However, the proposed amendment has faced opposition from some of the THSRC’s original investors, who accuse the government of forcefully seizing private property.
Lawmakers in the legislature’s Transportation Committee also refused to review the amendment on the grounds that some questions remain unanswered.
The Bureau of High Speed Rail said that the government has to exercise its authority to take over operation of the high-speed rail if it is not able to operate due to financial problems, which in turn would affect the public’s access to transportation.
The measure did not mean that the government would seize private property, the bureau said.
The bureau said that Article 43 of the statute already authorizes the ministry to stipulate separate rules of enforcement for a government takeover, adding that the amendment this time was to make some of these enforcement rules part of the statute itself, with reference to other government regulations.
The purpose was to avoid controversy as a result of any government takeover in the future, the bureau said.
The bureau added that the same article in the statute has already listed the conditions under which the ministry can activate the procedures for a government takeover, including the mismanagement of the high-speed rail operator, failure to improve operations within a designated period of time, or other major infractions of contracts.
“If the operator is able to address the contract violations, the government should terminate its takeover and allow the operator to run the system again,” the bureau said.
“Even if the government and the operator terminate the contract, the government needs to follow the terms of the contract in buying back the system,” it added.
However, the bureau said that amending the statute was one part of several complementary solutions to the problems facing the high-speed rail.
“We hope that the company can quickly present its plan to address its financial issues, which remains the top priority now,” the bureau said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,