Former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday said that public safety issues regarding the construction of the Taipei Dome (台北大巨蛋) were under the purview of the Ministry of the Interior, as finger-pointing over who is responsible for the controversial project continues following the publication of a safety inspection report by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) administration.
Hau said on Facebook that the dome’s evacuation plan was passed only after a long evaluation process by the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center, which had been appointed by the ministry to undertake the review.
“The ministry is responsible for the dome’s public safety evaluation,” Hau said.
“If the Ko administration has new findings about the review, it could discuss the matter with the ministry,” he said.
Lee Sush-der (李述德), former commissioner of Taipei’s Department of Finance when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was mayor, said that Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) would not have won the bid for the Taipei Dome if the Public Construction Commission, an agency under the Executive Yuan, had not requested three times that the city government revoke its decision to invalidate the bid.
"Based on [our] understanding, that happened during the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] administration era between 2000 and 2008. The Taipei City Government could not help but accept it if it was the central government’s request,” the Central News Agency concluded in the report on Lee’s statement.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) said the dome project is beset with not only safety problems, but also corruption, as she urged the city government to immediately terminate the contract with Farglory Land Development.
“I held a press conference in August last year demanding that the Taipei City Government terminate the contract signed with Farglory Land Development, as the latter had breached the contract, which stipulates that construction of the Taipei Dome should have been completed by June 30, 2014. The legal extension granted by the city government extended the deadline to December 28, 2014, which the city government added would not be further extended,” Kao said.
The city government could have, in accordance with the contract, taken over the construction or terminated the contract months ago because of the delays, she added.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) compared the capacity of the Taipei Dome to that of Taipei 101, raising the question of whether it would be possible for Taipei 101 to evacuate 140,000 people in an hour, a public safety standard used for the dome.
It is possible for both Taipei 101 and the Taipei Dome to hold 140,000 people, Liang said, “but there would no occasion for the dome to hold such a number of people. The initial plan for the dome was to host the Chinese Professional Baseball League, which could attract, at most, about 18,000 visitors, not to mention that its average number of viewers per month is only 7,000. There is no need for the league to rent the 60,000-seat dome.”
“The point is not about public safety, but the question of whether we want to have a dome that would constantly stay idle in the center of Taipei,” Liang said.
He said the city government should just tell Farglory “to tear it [the dome] down and get compensation from the company in accordance with the contract.”
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