An opposition councilor yesterday accused the Taipei City Government of wasting taxpayers’ money by sponsoring several pop concerts in return for promoting the upcoming International Flora Expo.
Stepping up its promotion efforts for the expo in November, the city government recently invited a number of pop stars to serve as event ambassadors or spokespersons, including S.H.E, Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Show Lo (羅志祥), and offered a NT$1.8 million (US$50,000) discount on the rental fee for the Taipei Arena, where they held concerts and promoted the expo during their performance.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) said the budget for sponsoring these pop performances did not go through a review at the Taipei City Council, and instead was approved as a “special project” by Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Yong-ping (李永萍).
Chien said this violated regulations on the management of the Taipei Arena, which has an established rental-fee policy for use of the arena. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp, which manages the arena, ignored the regulations and implemented the “special project” immediately, Chien said at the Taipei City Council.
“The city government used municipal property for promotion purposes and wasted taxpayers’ money. The under-the-table deal was also a slap in the face for those who followed legal procedures to apply for use of the arena,” she said.
Taipei City’s Department of Information and Tourism insisted that offering a discount for the arena’s use was legal, saying it was only following the successful example set by the Deaflympics last year, when it invited several pop stars to promote the event.
“The budget was approved as a special project. We are planning to invite more celebrities to promote the event through different types of collaboration,” said Hsiao Chun-chieh (蕭君杰), a department division chief.
The arena, an indoor sports stadium built in 2005, cost more than NT$4.5 billion to build. The city government had originally given management of the arena to the Eastern Multimedia Group (EMG, 東森多媒體). It took over the management after EMG suffered from financial difficulties, and appointed TRTC to run the arena.
The arena has failed to bring in solid earnings, with a rate of return of only 1.5 percent in 2008, according to statistics from Taipei City’s Audit Office.
Chien condemned the city government for using taxpayers’ money to make up for the arena’s losses, adding that the city council would demand that the city government submit the arena’s budget for approval.
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