An investigation into possible malpractice by Taipei City Government officials in the bidding process of the construction of the Taipei Twin Towers has been closed after it failed to find substantial evidence of wrongdoing, while cases involving former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration that allegedly benefited Hon Hai Group and Fubon Group are under investigation by the Control Yuan, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Ko made the remarks during an administrative report on the so-called “five cases of malpractice” at the Taipei City Council, where he also talked about planned hikes in water prices and bus fares.
The Taipei Twin Towers case was closed after a probe by the city’s Clean Government Committee could not find any major negligence or illegality on the part of city officials, Ko said, adding that the city government would respect the verdict passed down by the Taipei District Court.
The court last year sentenced former Taipei city councilor Lai Su-ju (賴素如), one of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) close aides, to a prison term of 10 years and deprivation of civil rights of five years over her acceptance of a NT$1 million (US$30,486) bribe from Taipei Gateway International Development Co and helping the firm secure the bid for the construction.
As to the Hau administration’s alleged benefiting of Hon Hai while setting the superficy rights when the corporation won the build-operate-transfer (BOT) bid to build the Syntrend Creative Park on land owned by the city, which the city government said would cost it financial losses over the life of the BOT contract, Ko said that the plan had been delivered to the Control Yuan for investigation.
The mayor said that Hon Hai had made changes to the floor plan of the main building in the complex, which would add about NT$2.7 million in annual royalty payments that Hon Hai is to pay the city government, and the increased revenue would be used to boost the development of the complex and the Bade (八德) commercial district where it is situated.
On the MeHAS housing complex, which is built on remaining plots of land seized from Taipei residents to build the Xindian Depot for operations of the mass rapid transit system’s Songshan-Xindian line, Ko said that the city had established a team to demand potential compensations from project owner Radium Life Tech Co, which reportedly total more than NT$22 billion.
More than 100 landowners had lodged a lawsuit against the city government, demanding that it compensate for the financial losses they suffered during the land expropriations, which was pronounced unconstitutional by the Council of Grand Justices last month.
On controversy surrounding the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, where the Eslite Group has started operations on floors in the Taipei New Horizon building which it leased from Fubon, Ko said that the city and Fubon last month signed a revised contract raising royalty payments to be paid by Eslite from 0.5 percent of the rent it pays Fubon to 0.5 percent of revenues generated from all facilities Eslite runs.
These facilities include a department store, a hotel and a venue for cultural and creative exhibitions and performances, the mayor said.
On ongoing negotiations between the city government and Farglory Group regarding the Taipei Dome project, Ko said that Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) has been put in charge of negotiating contractual terms with the corporation, while Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) is responsible for negotiations over how the company is to resolve safety issues caused by its deviations from the construction plan.
Ko said that Farglory had committed infractions in 79 areas of the dome’s construction, for which it has submitted revised construction plans which are currently being reviewed.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift