Pressure was mounting against the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday, over claims that problems have been found with a large number of government contractors that were approved when he was Taoyuan County commissioner.
The latest issue of the Chinese-language Next Magazine stated that 234 government contracts issued for school infrastructure renewal projects in Taoyuan County were mired in some sort of controversy — out of the total 425. Citing information from prosecutors’ offices, the report said that most of the controversial contracts were picked up by a set group of construction companies.
At an election stop, Chu, the mayoral candidate for what will become Sinbei City, said he believed that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had orchestrated a campaign of negative stories in the run-up to the special municipality elections next month. The accusations, he said, lacked evidence and he would welcome an investigation into the case by prosecutors.
“We understand that recently the DPP caucus has been collecting all sorts of statistics and documents in Taoyuan to hand to a number of special media outlets,” he said. “[The DPP] should not engage in underhanded tactics to win the elections.”
Instead, he insisted that the county government’s contracts were handled appropriately.
“Everything fulfilled relevant regulations. Government contracts all have many layers of checks,” he said. “[The accusations] don’t have any meaning at all ... and we will stand up to their test.”
The KMT candidate’s remarks come after the magazine showed no signs of holding back its release of potentially damaging information on Chu’s tenure as Taoyuan County commissioner between 2001 and last year. Last week, the publication wrote that two companies he once endorsed were engaged in allegedly illicit practices.
In the latest report, it said that 59 of the 234 allegedly problematic contracts approved by the county government contained prices that were exactly the same as the government’s unpublicized minimum amount. It also said that in nine of the contracts, the final amount paid was higher than what was allowed under its terms.
Speaking in response to the report, Chu’s opponent, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said she hoped Chu could face up to what she called public concerns. Chu, she said, also needed to make clear his own responsibilities in the controversies.
“It’s not important where the information is coming from. The central issue is whether or not these media [reports] are true,” she said. “We hope that Chu’s campaign can avoid [downplaying] the reports ... he needs to give a complete explanation.”
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS