The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Taipei City Government for failing to avoid a conflict of interest during then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) time in office that might have resulted in profiteering by a development firm in the Zhongxing Shanzhuang (中興山莊) urban renewal project.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seized a plot belonging to a landowner surnamed Yeh (葉) that was later used as the site for the Sun Yat-sen Institution on Policy Research and Development, whose premises partly overlap with the urban renewal project, Control Yuan members Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) and Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) told a news conference.
The KMT “rented” the plot to the KMT Central Committee, which paid rent only briefly, essentially occupying it, Kao said, adding that Yeh had to continue to pay land taxes.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Yeh later offered to sell the plot for NT$200 per ping (3.3m2), but accepted the KMT’s counteroffer of NT$105 per ping, he said.
According to witnesses, four men, including one with a pistol holstered at his waist, visited Yeh’s home during negotiations, Kao said, adding that Yeh was the disadvantaged party throughout the process, unlike ordinary property rental or sale cases.
“Land marked for government use cannot be used by private entities, but the KMT has since 1969 used the plot of land to run the institute training its cadres while avoiding land taxes,” Kao said.
As the KMT had promised the city government that 5,800 ping of land from the plot would be donated for the relocation of Taipei Municipal Yongjian Elementary School, the land was marked for government use, he said.
However, the city government later rezoned the land for residential use, allowing the KMT to sell it to the Yuanlih Group, which profited from the removal of technicalities that had previously precluded it from participating in an urban renewal project, he added.
Ma, who at the time was also KMT vice chairman and should have avoided a conflict of interest, approved the rezoning, Kao said.
The city’s urban planning committee passed a resolution allowing Yuanlih to acquire part of the plot at a discounted price, which was at odds with the section of the Constitution on protecting people’s property and constituted profiteering on behalf of a political party and a corporation, he said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS