The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus yesterday urged the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau to come clean and disclose the names of members of the electronic toll collection (ETC) system selection committee as well as records of the evaluation process.
Specifically, TSU Legislator David Huang (
"The law does not specify that these records cannot be open to the public for the purpose of investigation," Huang said at a briefing in which Minister of Transportation and Communications Kuo Yao-chi (
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
"The administrative order [referring to Chen' s decision to keep them secret] is against the law," Huang said.
As requested, the bureau on Wednesday presented several boxes of documents pertaining to the evaluation process.
However, the bureau only distributed to the press a list showing the performance and ranking of each bidder, but not the individual scores assigned by the evaluation committee.
Chen said that the other documents are sealed in the boxes for review by prosecutors and are thus inappropriate for public display.
In defense of his action, Chen said it is based on Articles 10, 15 and 17 of the Regulations for the Organization of the Selection Committee and Evaluation for the Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects.
These articles require mem-bers serving on the selection committee to refrain from disclosing any information submitted by bidders.
The process and the content of the negotiations among the members, and the comments compiled by all participating members should also be kept confidential unless other regulations deemed otherwise, he said.
"I will go to jail if I let you see this," Chen told reporters.
Facing a barrage of questions and requests from legislators yesterday, Chen reiterated that the bureau is simply following the rules and will respect the legislators' opinions on this issue.
Legislators present at the meeting said they intend to set up a special committee to review the confidential records.
Meanwhile, Kuo said during the briefing that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) will do everything it can to protect the interest of consumers that have already purchased the onboard units.
The minister added that the administration's policy in executing the ETC system remains unchanged.
She said that to minimize the damage after the appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court, the MOTC and Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co have reached an agreement that the ministry would not compensate the company for any expansion in ETC system-related facilities after Feb. 24.
Kuo also said that the ministry has informed the company that it needs to raise the number of OBU installation to 100,000 by next Thursday, or one ETC-lane will be canceled.
"If all these problems are not dealt with properly [by the MOTC,] it would be straw that breaks the camel's back for the Democratic Progressive Party government," TSU Legislator Huang Cheng-Che (
In other developments, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday established a task force to investigate the scandal over the ETC bidding process, which they described as a duplicate of the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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