The Taipei City Government’s current contract with Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) for the construction of the Taipei Dome is “ridiculous,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
“I think this contract is simply ridiculous,” Ko said. “How could it be possible to draft a contract that we have absolutely no way of defending?”
He said that under the contract, the stadium complex should have been completed by June last year.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
While the firm was granted a one-time extension by the previous municipal administration, it has been in violation of the contract since a deadline passed last month, he added.
However, under the contract, “nothing can be done” to punish the firm for project delays, Ko said.
The mayor’s remarks follow statements by Farglory last week that construction of the site could be delayed past the date of the 2017 Universiade if the city does not go through with a controversial tunnel linking the project with the National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
The firm said that the tunnel is intended as an evacuation route, but the plan has sparked criticism from the mayor for its “strange design,” with the capital deciding on Friday last week to delay the tunnel’s opening while officials review other options.
Ko has previously described Farglory’s statements about further potential construction delays as “blackmail,” promising to relocate the Universiade’s opening and closing ceremonies to the Taipei Gymnasium if the Taipei Dome site is unavailable.
When asked how he intended to respond to Farglory’s contract violations, the mayor yesterday said that he ordered the municipality’s Department of Legal Affairs to thoroughly research the capital’s legal options, while stopping short of saying Taipei would consider terminating the firm’s contract.
Ko’s dispute with Farglory is the largest of several with firms over projects on municipal land, including the Taipei New Horizon (臺北文創) building in the Songshan Cultural Park and the MeHAS City (美河市) development project next to the Xiaobitan MRT station.
“If we feel contractual terms are unreasonable, we will raise our hands in protest,” he said yesterday.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
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DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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