Environmentalists protested in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday, accusing the government of not developing green and alternative transportation methods in the east of the country as promised while moving ahead with the controversial Suhua Freeway under the table.
The protest came just days before the Global Day of Action against global warming on Dec 6.
Chanting slogans such as, “December 6th, Taiwan be cool” and “Drive less, fight global warming,” Society of Wilderness spokesperson Tony Chou (周東漢) told reporters: “We all thought the Suhua Freeway issue was closed, but in reality it is still very much alive.”
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The disputed project, proposed more than a decade ago, was halted on April 25 when it failed to pass the Environmental Protection Administration’s environmental impact evaluation.
The project was returned to the ministry, which means that if the ministry wanted to go ahead with the project (pending Cabinet approval), it would have to begin a new environmental review process.
The protesters were angered by the ministry’s proposed budget for next year, which is due to go through a legislative review process between now and January, Chou said.
“While not a single dollar has been allocated for the purchase of new trains for the east coast and there has been no mention of the Suhua Freeway alternate route that Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) spoke about earlier, a budget for the Suhua Freeway has been listed from now until 2014, amounting to about NT$93 billion [US$2.8 billion],” Chou said.
Chou was referring to Liu’s announcement in early July that the government planned to construct “an alternative road” to the Suhua Highway connecting Nanao (南澳) in Ilan County and Hoping (和平) in Hualien County. The announcement led environmentalists to accuse the government of playing name games, especially after Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said soon afterwards that the alternative route would be “of freeway standard” but would not be the Suhua Freeway.
“There is only a brief mention of an ‘improvement plan’ for the Suhua Highway, with a budget of about NT$30 million,” Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said.
“To get the NT$93 billion budget for the freeway, the ministry will take NT$7 billion from its budget, request NT$20.4 billion from the national budget, while getting the remaining NT$65 billion from selling government bonds and going into debt,” Pan said.
“This is an act that would leave a heavy debt for generations to come,” he said.
However, national highway construction section chief Lan Wei-gung (藍維恭) said yesterday that it was necessary to list the freeway project in the budget because some accounts for the project had yet to be formally closed.
It was “like a company would list its losses on its books,” he said.
“This is just like any company’s accounts book … The Suhua Freeway had been going on for many years. It went through a formal budget review and bidding process, so the books must reflect the activities because some of the accounts have not yet be settled,” he said.
Budgets were planned for the freeway until 2014, but that does not mean that it would happen now, he said.
“From what we can see now, it would be impossible for the Suhua Freeway to be allocated funds in the 2010 budget book,” he said.
As for the improvement plan for the Suhua Highway, Lan said it was written in the budget book to offer legislators alternative options to the freeway or its alternative route.
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