Liberty Times (LT): Can you explain to us what this case is about?
Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋): The Taipei City Government originally expropriated 28,000 ping (92,560 m2) of land in New Taipei City’s Sindian Distirct (新店) that it said would be used to construct an MRT depot. The city government bought the land at market value — NT$170,000 to NT$180,000 (US$5,400 to US$5,700 at current exchange rates) per ping — plus an additional 40 percent.
The plan to build an MRT depot was later revised and the site was instead slated to become the location of a jointly developed residential complex. Meanwhile, Radium Life Tech Co (日勝生公司) bought 148 ping of land from owners previously unwilling to sell to the city government at NT$600,000 per ping as private property. As owners of private property, Radium obtained the rights to develop the land and thus became a partner in the joint development project, in which the city government provided the land and Radium shouldered the costs.
In April 2011, I brought the project to the notice of the Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation, saying that under-the-table government and corporate deals were suspected in the project. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last year closed the case on the grounds that there was no evidence of giving or receiving bribes.
However, the office that indicted former Taipei City Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS) development branch director Kao Chia-nung (高嘉濃) and former DORTS section head Wang Ming-tsang (王銘藏) allegedly scaled up the constructor’s overheads in an attempt to benefit Radium.
The case is quite absurd. If, going by the office’s logic, Kao and Wang both risked imprisonment to benefit the builders, without either accepting bribes from the builders or being instructed to do so by their superiors; that does not make any logical sense.
Furthermore, a key point in this case is that the government profited off the public — by expropriating land at the market price set when the land was to be used for infrastructure — with private companies profiting from the government by buying land at the site and becoming partners.
The city government’s attempt to profit at the expense of the public has instead benefited big business, with corporations making all the profit and no money going into the city coffers.
LT: The prosecutors have already made up their minds that the entire case was orchestrated by Kao and Wang to benefit Radium. Do you think there are other incidents that still require investigation?
Yang: The prosecutors are currently looking in the direction I pointed them toward in the past — at the discrepancy in the original construction cost estimates. However, from the most recent information in my possession, the distribution of property is another part of the case that might need to be looked into.
According to my information, Radium employees actually chaired and recorded a meeting held to decide the equity ratio of the finished products. This is in complete violation of regulations. This is something the prosecutors’ office has not yet touched on in its investigation. I am certain that if investigated, this particular aspect of the case would reveal illegal activities. Despite the case being officially closed last year, I will be bringing in new evidence and asking for a re-opening of the investigation into the case.
LT: Can you explain in detail what kind of new evidence you have discovered?
Yang: If equity rights are calculated in accordance with contribution in terms of land and building materials, the Taipei City Government should receive 30.75 percent, while Radium has 69.25 percent. In theory, the city government should be entitled to four residential buildings in the complex [The MeHAS City project contains 13 residential buildings, two commercial buildings and one shopping center]. Why has the city government only received one residential building? The other buildings and assets placed in the city government’s name — including store lots, offices and parking lots — are of low value in such complexes. [What we want to know is who made the decisions for such distribution]?
Even more absurd is the official documents I obtained from DORTS saying the method of distribution was decided at one of the seminars held when former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was Taipei mayor.
According to the DORTS document, the office held a meeting in 1997, the record of which said that in the event of joint development projects the city government should endeavor to keep lots and offices to establish a basis for sustainable management.
However, according to my findings, the meeting concerned DORTS’ first joint development case for the Wenhu MRT Line’s Technology Building Station. They [DORTS] are quite disingenuous to base their distribution model for the Meiho Complex on suggestions made by a professor at a meeting nearly 18 years ago.
In addition, the technology building case is entirely different from the Meiho Complex case in that the technology building does not contain any residential buildings.
One of the key pieces of evidence in my possession is that DORTS held four meetings from August to November 2007 to discuss the distribution of the complex’s buildings based on equity ratio. However, the meetings were chaired by Radium general manager Liu Yao-kai (劉垚凱) and the meeting records were handled by Radium employees.
It must be made clear by further investigation who authorized the company to chair the meeting, and whether such decisions are evidence of collusion between the government and the corporations.
LT: Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has extended an invitation for you to join the city’s “Clean Government Commission.” How, as a member of the commission, would you conduct the investigation into the MeHAS City development? What kind of reparations would you ask for?
Yang: To be frank, the reason we probe the case is not because we seek to put people into jail. The focus on the case is to raise the amount of payment Radium must pay due to city government losses on the assessment prices and the unfair allocation of properties in the complex.
Last year, Radium paid the Taipei City Government NT$3.53 billion. On Nov. 30 last year, the day after the elections in which I lost my bid to be re-elected as city councilor, then-Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) called me, asking for my opinions on the issue of payments for the MeHAS City project. I told him that if the city government did not ask for approximately NT$10 billion in reparations, he would find it difficult to “walk away unscathed.” By Dec. 4, the city government announced it had increased its reparation demands to NT$7.69 billion. If the city government were to receive that sum of money, Taipei residents could greatly benefit, as the money could be used on social subsidies and welfare.
LT: Why do you think the Hau administration is implicated in the MeHAS City project case?
Yang: The strangest thing about the MeHAS City project case is the renegotiation of the equity ratio under the Hau administration.
If the city government followed the equity ratio agreed upon under then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, the city government would receive 30.6 percent.
After Hau assumed office, then-Taipei deputy mayor Lin Chung-yi (林崇一) asked for a renegotiation of equity ratio distribution with the goal of attaining 32.5 percent on grounds that 30.6 percent was too little. The renegotiations only achieved a figure of 30.75 percent, an increase of less than 0.15 percent.
From how the case progressed from start to finish, the latecomers [Hau and his administrative team] would be unable to receive any money if the percentages agreed upon under the Ma administration were kept, as all the money would have gone to previous handlers of the case under the Ma administration, thus leading to the renegotiation.
Furthermore, on the equity ratio distribution rates, while the prices for the commercial buildings and store lots could be manipulated, the prices for the residential buildings had a fixed going rate, which could not be exploited.
As Radium presided over the method of determination for the distribution of property on equity ratios, it is logical for me to suspect that the renegotiation were a ruse to benefit Radium.
LT: With Ko’s establishment of the Clean Government Commission, what other cases would you recommend the committee look into aside from the MeHAS City project?
Yang: The Taipei New Horizon Building case deserves another probe. The building, owned by Fubon Group subsidiary Taipei New Horizon Co, is in essence a super-sized commercial building containing multiple offices and a hotel, but masquerading as a building focused on the development of cultural creativity.
While some would ask who stands to benefit from the building, former city officials point to the Taipei City Bureau of Culture. Incidentally, Lin was deputy Taipei mayor at the time. I brought the issue to the notice of the district prosecutor’s office before, but the office closed the case on lack of evidence of the giving or receipt of bribes. I will nonetheless seek to restart the investigation.
I found a meeting record on which it was stated that the New Taipei Horizon Company would pay the Taipei City Government NT$5.28 billion as a return on investment, but the company only has to give the Taipei City Government NT$1.56 billion over a 50-year period.
That is a huge discrepancy, and unless the company intends to pay back the rest of the previously agreed to amount, I would take the case to the Special Investigation Division (SID) against Hau on charges of negligence of duty.
In addition, the Taipei Twin Towers case needs to be looked into. I was one of the members of the investigation panel formed by the city council and I am of the opinion that Hau is 99 percent behind everything regarding the Twin Towers case.
As the modus operandi for the MeHAS City project, the New Taipei Horizon building and the Taipei Twin Towers case are all the same, ie, tossing out set proposals for the plots of land and organizing another project in its place, investigation on all three cases should be reopened.
Translated by staff writer Jake Chung
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