Keelung City Council Speaker Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰) was the leading figure who pulled the strings in a bribery scandal uncovered this week, authorities alleged.
Officers from the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office and Ministry of Justice agencies continued a judicial probe on Wednesday, raiding offices and homes to investigate alleged corruption by Huang and Keelung councilors in dealing with a street expansion project for Yuemei Road (月眉路) involving Unison Developing Co.
Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Chou Chi-yung (周啟勇) said that while investigating Huang earlier this year on another bribery case involving apartment building projects in Keelung City by JSL Group and Highwealth Construction Co, they found an account book allegedly containing 18 councilors’ names and figures for payments to each.
Photo: Yu Chao-fu, Taipei Times
After yesterday’s questioning and examination of evidence, Prosecutors’ Office investigators said they are certain the amounts in the account book, belonging to the council speaker’s chief secretary Huang Lien-mao (黃連茂), was for paying bribes to councilors to gain their approval for the Yuemei Road project.
The Prosecutors’ Office confirmed that several top executives from Unison Developing Co, including chairman Chen Cheng-feng (陳振豐), were brought in for questioning on Wednesday regarding their alleged roles in paying bribes and providing other benefits to influence the project approval decision.
Information from the Prosecutors’ Office indicated payment figures varied for the 18 councilors, with some allegedly receiving up to NT$200,000 (US$6,665), although it was suspected that there were additional bribe payments.
The city government had already applied for a NT$500 million subsidy from the Ministry of the Interior for the Yuemei project.
The road expansion project, supposedly for the benefit of local residents, aimed to improve traffic access to the Embrace Art Garden, of Unison Developing Co, a 4-hectare cemetery plot in a luxury garden setting on a hill slope in the rural Nuannuan (暖暖) and Sinyi (信義) districts of Keelung.
An investigation by the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption (AAC) said the 18 city councilors initially opposed the road expansion project, but later all voted to approve it, after allegedly receiving bribes.
It was also suspected that the ministry subsidy of NT$500 million was used for these graft payments to councilors and other officials.
AAC investigators said the account book also had other payment figures to councilors allegedly dealing with several other real-estate projects, including a previous corruption case involving the Peide (培德) apartment complex construction, in which developer Lih Yuan Co illegally drilled a hot spring water vein.
Therefore, investigators said, there could be additional corruption charges against Huang and the councilors.
Despite facing corruption and graft charges, Huang is still running as an independent candidate for the Keelung mayoral seat in the upcoming election, after the KMT dropped him as its candidate in favor of Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功).
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