The government is to launch a comprehensive inspection of all major transportation projects to determine if officials had accepted bribes from the French company Alstom, Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said yesterday.
The Levallois-Perret-based firm had agreed to pay US$772 million to the US earlier this week after pleading guilty to bribery charges following an investigation by the US Department of Justice.
The US investigation showed that between 2000 and 2010, Alstom had paid more than US$75 million in bribes to secure US$4 billion in contracts around the world, including in Egypt, Indonesia and Taiwan.
US Deputy Attorney General James Cole said on Monday that the bribery scheme “was astounding in its breadth, its brazenness and its worldwide consequences.”
Taiwan’s alleged involvement in the Alstom’s bribery scheme was brought up by lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which was scheduled to review construction funds for the high-speed rail system.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津), who presided over the budget review session, said that reports showed that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and Taipei Rapid Transport Corp (TRTC) had conducted business with Alstom in the past.
The VAL256-model trains deployed on the Taipei MRT’s Wenhu Line (Line 1) use electric, mechanical and signaling systems produced by Alstom, while Taipower uses Alstom’s turbine engines for its thermal power plants, she said.
Yeh Yi-jin said that she has evidence that Alstom was involved in the construction of the nation’s Airport Rail.
She added that a former low-level civil servant in the TRTC was hired by Alstom to work in the French company’s branch office.
She questioned whether officials involved in Airport Rail project might have also accepted bribes from the French multinational company.
In response, Yeh Kuang-shih said that the ministry would conduct a comprehensive inspection of all transport projects under its supervision.
The Bureau of High Speed Rail said the Marubani Corp secured the overall contract for the Airport Rail’s signaling system, which then outsourced the contract of installing the system to Siemens. Alstom is not involved in the project.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS