The Council for Economic Planning and Development and the Cabinet said a political donation from former Tuntex Group president Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪) to the three major political parties in Taiwan was designed to sway decision-making over a power plant contract.
Chang Ching-sen (
"It is an embezzlement case with top KMT officials involved. Whoever can control the project has to be someone with a minister status or higher. We should find out who made the decisions back then," Chang said.
Cabinet Secretary-General Liu Shi-fang (
Liu said the individual he suspects most in the scandal is former minister of economic affairs Wang Chih-kang (王志剛). Liu said the Cabinet had been gathering related information and documents for further investigation.
Liu added that the document specified that bidders for the Tatan power plant had to have a thermal reception station in northern Taiwan, and that the bidders had to be private enterprises, although state-run enterprises can invest in the bidding enterprises.
"The labor union of Chinese Petroleum Company (CPC,中國石油) was unhappy with the decision because it thought the CPC was excluded from bidding," Liu said.
"Wang Chih-kang, who was then minister of economic affairs, was the most likely official involved in the embezzlement, and the Cabinet is looking into the case," she said.
Tung Ting Gas Corp (
Taipower awarded the contract to another state-run company, Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油), in an open international tender in July last year.
In a bid to secure the contract, Chen Yu-hao reportedly contributed NT$10 million to Chen Shui-bian (
Chang and Liu made their statement during a Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus meeting yesterday. The caucus invited the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Council for Economic Planning and Development and the Ministry of Justice to report on the Tatan thermal power plant bidding.
Chang said that after the transfer of power, the restrictions were lifted and Chinese Petroleum Corp was able to bid on its own, so that bidding on the project could put to a fair and open process.
"CPC won the bid, and the price it quoted was NT$296.2 billion, lower than the starting bidding price, so the government saved NT$116.8 billion on the purchase. If we add up other costs saved on equipment purchases and equipment efficiency, Taipower saved NT$173.9 billion in the end," Chang said.
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