CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船) yesterday said the company is willing to continue the construction of minesweeper ships if Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co’s (慶富造船) contract with the Ministry of National Defense is terminated.
Ching Fu in 2014 won a contract to build six minesweepers on a budget of up to NT$35.85 billion (US$1.185 billion), but might not be able to fulfill the contract due to financial fraud allegations and technical problems.
In August, prosecutors found that the company had secured a NT$20.5 billion loan from a consortium of nine banks headed by First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) by providing the banks with false contracts.
Premier William Lai (賴清德) on Tuesday said that the government would terminate the contract if necessary to prevent further losses.
The ministry would terminate the contract if Ching Fu halts construction of the first minesweeper — which is being built in Italy — or if it declares bankruptcy, among other scenarios, Navy Command Headquarters Chief of Staff Lee Tsung-hsiao (李宗孝) said on Thursday at the Legislative Yuan.
At a forum on the nation’s indigenous shipbuilding program at the legislature yesterday, ministry officials presented evidence that Ching Fu’s work should have been 7.9 percent complete, but is now 1.26 percent behind schedule because the construction of a factory in Kaohsiung’s Sinda Fishing Port is not yet finished.
The ministry has presented Ching Fu with a deadline to improve its efficiency, a ministry official said.
The ministry is watching the company’s performance closely, but it has not met any necessary conditions for contract termination, Vice Minister of National Defense Pu Tze-chun (蒲澤春) said.
Considering Ching Fu had beaten CSBC to win the tender in 2014, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) inquired about the latter company’s willingness to continue building the minesweepers if Ching Fu were to drop out.
Technically speaking, CSBC is competent to build the minesweepers, but whether it could join the program depends on the ministry’s attitude and how a contract would be negotiated, CSBC vice president Chou Chih-ming (周志明) said.
Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan has established an investigative body convened by Vice Premier Shih Jun-ji (施俊吉) to probe the Ching Fu scandal, Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said yesterday.
Whether defense ministry officials would face punishment for dereliction of duty would depend on the results of the investigation, Hsu added.
Additional reporting by Lee Hsin-fang
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
RSS