A dispute between the Ministry of Education and school representatives from a school reconstruction project in Taiwan's 921 earthquake zone was apparently triggered when local interest groups began to worry that they would miss out on the project's lucrative profits, lawmakers said yesterday.
"The root of the conflict between the two parties is obvious: local interests groups [in the Taichung area] are upset that they may lose the bidding for an upcoming lucrative deal," said DPP lawmaker Wang Shih-hsun (王世勛), referring to the campus reconstruction project of Tungshi Vocational High School (東勢高工) in Taichung County.
Local ties
The interests groups, according to Wang, are Lee Ping-feng
(李炳豐), director of the school's parent's association, and KMT lawmaker Yang Wen-hsin (楊文欣), a Taichung County representative.
Lee, accompanied by Yang, filed complaints on Tuesday with the legislature and the Control Yuan, the country's supreme watchdog body.
They alleged that Vice Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) and her husband Chang Fu-chung (張富忠) attempted to collect profits out of the school reconstruction project by intervening in the formation of a committee which was to select architects and construction companies favored by the ministry.
According to Wang, a lawmaker also from Taichung, Lee and Yang come from the same family and have deep connections with construction firms in the region, so "it is natural that they are protesting against the education ministry because it may spoil their original plan -- to win the bid for the school's reconstruction."
Yang is the vice president of the Changyi Group (長億集團), a renowned construction company, and Lee is his uncle.
Wang said it was commonly known that they took charge of many construction projects in the Taichung area.
"For an immense project valued at NT$860 million, the education ministry is only doing their job to ensure everything follows legal procedure," Wang said, adding that he hoped judicial departments would take immediate action to uncover the truth.
`Ungrounded accusations'
Furious over what he termed "the ungrounded allegations," Chang Fu-chung yesterday told the Taipei Times that what Fan had done at the ministry was regarded as a stumbling block by those accustomed to profiting from public construction projects.
"We've expected slander from the locals when [Fan] strived to weed out the longstanding unlawful conduct, but we that hope whoever has directed these accusations against us can present their evidence," Chang said.
"If I am found to have interfered with the internal affairs of the education ministry, Fan will immediately resign," he added.
Responding to the criticism, Yang said the reason that Fan and other lawmakers have so enthusiastically linked him with the Changyi Group at this sensitive time was to blur the focus of the issue.
Yang said his group was never engaged in any dealings with the public sector and that the only reason he was involved in the dispute was because the school is situated in his constituency.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS