Former Taipei finance commissioner Lee Sush-der (李述德) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday rejected accusations of profiteering from the Taipei Dome project made against him by the Taipei Clean Government Committee, calling the investigation biased and politically motivated and urging the city government’s Department of Ethics to launch another probe into it.
A committee report earlier this month accused Lee and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of negotiating the Taipei Dome’s contract terms to allow illegal profiteering by Farglory Group (遠雄集團) during Ma’s tenure as mayor of Taipei. As Ma’s finance commissioner, Lee was responsible for much of the negotiation process.
In a written response, Lee rejected each of the committee’s allegations, saying that the city agreed to reduce Farglory’s royalties for site usage to zero in return for an increase to “feedback funds” the group was to pay out in benefits to city residents. The feedback funds, totaling NT$110 million (US$3.6 million) annually, were equal to about 2 percent of estimated yearly revenue for the Taipei Dome complex — far greater than the NT$2 million in usage royalties the city had originally sought, he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-Chao, Taipei Times
Lee also accused the committee of being politically biased, saying that three members of the subcommittee charged with investigating the case had worked for prominent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) political figures.
Lee called for a reinvestigation of the case by Taipei’s Department of Government Ethics, adding that contract terms negotiated for the Taipei Dome were not substantially different from those of the K-Arena (高雄大巨蛋), for which Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) was responsible during his tenure in Kaohsiung’s public works department.
When asked for a response by city councilors, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said Lee’s response would be sent to the Clean Government Committee for consideration.
Ko said the committee’s investigation should be closed at its next meeting early next month, because it had already unearthed everything that could be discovered by examining city documents. Any further progress would have to rely on the judicial process, he said.
Regarding the political affiliations of subcommittee members, he said any individual bias would be corrected by the need for the report to be approved by the whole committee.
In related news, Ko yesterday told a city council meeting that buying back the Taipei Dome site would be a “good deal.”
“We’ve calculated that purchasing back the entire site and then leasing it out again would be a good deal, financially speaking,” Ko said during a question-and-answer session with city councilors.
Since buying back the site would be relatively “cost-effective,” a city council resolution for the annulment of Farglory Group’s contract would not create “problems” for the city administration, he said.
The city and Farglory have been locked in months of conflict over project safety and contract terms, with Taipei currently calling for the demolition of either the Taipei Dome structure itself or a neighboring shopping mall.
Ko also said that, while a referendum on the future of the project could serve as an “important indication” of public opinion, he felt that ensuring city residents are well informed about the issue was more important, reiterating previous promises to hold public hearings on the subject before making a decision.
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