What happens to a house if it is left for 16 years without thorough sweeping, vacuuming and cleaning? It would become filthy and messy, with heavy dust. By the same logic, the public wonders whether the Taipei City Government has gathered cobwebs after having been managed by the same party for 16 years.
After comments by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) over the prior administration’s way of doing business, unnoticed issues are now in the spotlight.
One concerns how former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration appeared to be quite a spendthrift with taxpayers’ money.
While inspecting the construction of an athletes’ village for the 2017 Summer Universiade, Ko — and many Taiwanese — were stunned to find out that some of the village’s amenities, estimated to cost NT$2.6 billion (US$81.78 million), are to be removed right after the 12-day event.
In 2011, when Hau announced that the capital would host the event, he pledged a total budget of almost NT$40 billion. A budget of NT$36.8 billion was eventually allotted, with the athletes’ village in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) set to be turned into welfare housing units after the Universiade.
The municipal government estimated that NT$2.6 billion would be needed to rebuild and remodel the site from athletes’ accommodation into housing units.
In other words, that huge sum is to be spent for a mere 12-day stay — the absurdity is simply flabbergasting.
While Taipei New Construction Department Director Huang Chih-feng (黃治峰), has said that NT$1.1 billion of the NT$2.6 billion would not be wasted — as furniture, air conditioners and the like would be reused — who is to guarantee that these items will indeed be reused and not end up in storage, wasted?
If Hau’s administration had given the plan more careful thought with a keen conscience toward looking after taxpayers’ money, imagine how such spending could have been avoided.
For instance, if a university were given NT$300 million to renovate a dormitory, imagine how many schools and students could benefit.
According to the municipal government’s estimate, the Universiade will generate NT$10 billion in tourism revenue. Does this benefit the capital as a whole?
This brings to mind the Ko administration’s demolition of the exclusive bus lanes in front of Taipei Railway Station last month. While Hau’s administration estimated that the demolition would cost NT$6 million, NT$4.1 million was all it took for Ko to get the task done.
In light of this example, many cannot help wondering that if the range between the estimated and actual cost is that big for a project such as the bus lane, how big might be the margin of budgeting errors for Taipei’s bigger public projects — and how much taxpayers’ money has been squandered?
During his mayoral campaign, Ko pledged: “All public servants, including top officials, no longer need to serve any particular political party or ideology; they do not even need to serve the mayor, and should serve only the people of Taipei.”
“Let us begin to change Taiwan from Taipei and let us change Taipei by changing the culture,” has been another slogan trumpeted by Ko.
Hopefully the new Taipei administration, under Ko’s leadership, lives up to his promises and the public’s expectations, genuinely working to serve residents’ best interests by looking after taxpayers’ hard-earned money and clamping down on irregularities.
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