An official document issued by the Taipei City Government to Taipei Dome contractor Farglogy Group (遠雄集團) on Wednesday deliberately downplayed the construction company’s breaches of a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract and indicated that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) administration had opened up a backdoor for the corporation to resume construction of the Dome, the Songshan Tobacco Factory Tree Protection Union said yesterday.
In the document, the city government recounted Farglory’s negligence in building the facility and urged the corporation to pass safety reviews administered by the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center and the city within three months, by resolving safety concerns caused by its 79 deviations from the original construction plan and passing a license change that would allow the construction, suspended for more than one year, to resume.
Farglory should issue a reply by July 8 saying whether it would comply with these demands, otherwise the city would ask banks that loaned capital to Farglory for the Dome to take over the project or terminate the contract, the document said.
The city government urged the corporation to swiftly propose a plan that would enable it to complete the construction in the shortest amount of time possible.
Citing a document the city delivered to Farglory in March last year with similar demands, union convener Arthur Yo (游藝), a long-time opponent of the Dome project, said that the firm had allowed the problems it created to persist for more than one year; therefore, Ko is being lenient on Farglory for allowing it yet another grace period spanning three months just so that it could bring the construction in line with safety requirements.
He slammed the city government for pleading with Farglory to finish the construction, saying that even if the firm resolved all issues surrounding the project in three months, it would still be in violation of the contract over its failure to meet the deadline, set at the end of 2014, to obtain an operational license for the facility after it allowed the project to fall seriously behind schedule.
Farglory’s deviations from the construction plan and delays in construction should be deemed a case of “serious infraction or negligence in ensuring construction quality” covered by contractual terms, and Ko should use this as a legal basis to dissolve the contract and tear down the Dome, Yo said.
Other union members also raised questions over Ko’s stance on the Dome debacle.
“Originally, I thought that the document would be the city government’s ‘Dear John letter’ to Farglory, but obviously the two parties are not ready to part with each other,” a union volunteer, surnamed Chang (張), said.
Another volunteer, surnamed Kuo (郭), accused the city government of double-dealing; criticizing Farglory on the surface, while actually pandering to the firm.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Council caucus issued a statement reiterating its stance that Ko and city officials involved in the BOT project should assume full responsibility if the contract is ultimately dissolved, a scenario which many people believe would prompt a lawsuit from Farglory.
Should the city lose the lawsuit and be required to compensate the corporation, it should ensure that not one dollar from the city’s coffers is drained, the KMT said, adding that Ko and his officials should be the only people held responsible for the compensation, estimated at tens of billions of New Taiwan dollars.
In response to the KMT's statement, Yo said the Dome debacle should be ascribed to former Taipei mayors Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九) and Hau Lung-bin's (郝龍斌) questionable dealings with Farglory that waived royalties payable to the city government for using the land where the Dome complex is situated, and helped the corporation obtain the initial construction license despite its failure to meet the deadline to do so.
Therefore, Ma and Hau, rather than Ko, should pay the potential compensation, Yo said.
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