City-directed construction of the Taipei Twin Towers project is the only way to ensure the project’s completion, Taipei Deputy Mayor Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚) said yesterday.
Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) earlier said the city’s construction plan was wasteful because the city government lacks the funds and skilled personnel necessary to successfully complete the project.
The Taipei Twin Towers project is one of the largest construction projects in the city’s history, consisting of two skyscrapers to be built over the Taipei station of the future Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport line. After a series of corruption scandals forced the project’s initial winning bidder to withdraw and the second bidder, BES Engineering Corp, was unable to meet new city conditions for the contract, the city last month announced that it would take over responsibility for the construction.
In response to Ko’s criticism, Chang said that city-directed construction would ensure that all profits from the project flow into city coffers, using the Chinese idiom: “Rich waters shouldn’t be allowed to flow into others’ fields” (肥水不落外人田).
“While previously the government was not able to build the project itself due to a lack of funds and experienced personnel, we’ve overcome all of these problems,” Chang said.
He said the city government’s Department of Rapid Transit Systems currently has between NT$20 billion and NT$30 billion (US$655 and US$982 million) available for the project, with further funds expected from loans and sub-contractors.
The department has also gained the necessary experience to build the towers as it constructed their foundations over the past several years, he said.
Asked whether the Taipei City Council would oppose the city’s plan, Chang said the city government would work hard to persuade city councilors.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) has said that the city government’s decision was meant to cover up its lapses during the bidding process.
She said that a final decision about the project’s future cannot be made until previous bidder BES Engineering’s lawsuit against the city is concluded.
City government talk of profits from the project will only hurt its chances in the courts, she added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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