Chunghwa Post was not administratively negligent when it tried to lease the storage center in its logistics park in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山) in March, and controversies over the tendering process were caused by political intervention, Chunghwa Post president Chen Shian-juh (陳憲著) said yesterday.
While PChome was rated No. 1 tenderer and therefore entitled to lease all 15 available units of the storage center, Chunghwa Post has been criticized for not ensuring that the storage center was a diversified platform for cross-border logistics operators by not limiting the number of units that one operator could lease.
Some legislators have accused Chunghwa Post of abusing its public power to allow a certain logistics operator to profit from the deal.
Photo: Chien Jung-feng, Taipei Times
Chen and Chunghwa Post chairman Louis Wei (魏建宏) were asked to step down for failing to properly oversee the lease of the storage center, the Executive Yuan said on Wednesday.
However, Chen rejected reassignment and chose to retire early.
He used a news conference yesterday — his last day on the job — to explain how the company designed the tender and how the controversies over it emerged.
Chunghwa Post was told in 2013 by the Ministry of Interior that a 17.4 hectare property near the A7 Station of the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT line was available for purchase, which could be used to house a logistics park, Chen said.
While purchase of the property was completed in 2015, the value of the property did not become evident until Chunghwa Post removed all grass on the lot and the Taoyuan City Government built an access road to it, he said.
Even though the company in 2016 and 2017 held many information sessions on the property, which drew many participants, none were willing to sign letters of intent or memorandums of understanding, he said.
The company opened the public tender project in November last year after facilities on the property had been built, Chen said.
Asked why the company did not limit the number of units in a storage center that one operator could lease, Chen said that the tender was handled by an internal taskforce, and there were two main factors considered when they designed the tender regulations.
“If an operator can only lease three or five units, it might not attract many investors and leave a lot of units at the storage center unused,” he said.
“Large logistics and e-commerce operators might not be interested in leasing the units because of the restriction,” he said.
The tender rules were available for public view during a 40-day consultation period, and no one disputed them at the time, he said.
There were three qualified tenders — from PCHome Online, Shopee Taiwan Co and Senao International Co — out of the four tenders submitted and the trio’s qualifications were reviewed by outside experts in the tender’s final stage, Chen said.
Operators intending to use the storage center had to agree to have their goods delivered by Chunghwa Post, and had to allow it to place its iPostboxes in the unit, he said.
PChome was rated No. 1 following the strict evaluation process, he said.
However, there were “influences outside Chunghwa Post” that asked for changes to the tender rules — by allowing two other bidders to access the storage center as well — after the evaluation process was finished, Chen said.
Chunghwa Post asked the three firms to participate in a negotiation, he said.
While Shopee and Senao submitted their requests during the negotiations, legislators and senior government officials showed their concerns as well, but Chunghwa Post failed to reach an agreement with the trio, he said.
Chen said that he took full responsibility for the controversy over the tender and the project.
He might have been disliked by lawmakers and his superiors for refusing to change the tender rules after the evaluation process was over, Chen said.
After working for Chunghwa Post for almost 46 years, whether he left or stayed was a small matter, he added.
Taiwan has a geographical advantage for becoming a logistic hub for shipping goods to Southeast Asia, but such a goal is only viable if the nation has a normal and functioning mechanism with clear delegation of authority and responsibility, Chen said.
It must try to minimize political intervention in the mechanism as well, he added.
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