Councilors Criticize Sunshade Cost at NT$7.44 Million Per Unit; City Government Says Budget Appropriated Lawfully

(CNA Taipei, June 23) Taipei City Councilor Chien Shu-pei and others questioned today that the city government's installation of urban cooling pedestrian sunshades has allegedly seen a surge in budget to rush for political achievements, with a single unit costing NT$7.44 million. They demanded an investigation by the Department of Government Ethics. The Department of Urban Development responded that the relevant expenses were appropriated lawfully.

DPP City Councilor Chien Shu-pei, along with fellow DPP Taipei City Councilor candidate Chen Yu-hsin and Ma Yu-wen, held a press conference at the City Council this morning titled "Mayor Chiang Wan-an's Sky-High Sunshade Controversy! Budget Surges by NT$34 Million in 3 Months, Taipei Unit Costs NT$7.44 Million, New Taipei Unit Costs NT$900,000, Chiang Wan-an Should Clarify Personally."

Regarding the Taipei City Government's plan to install 8 pedestrian sunshades, Chien Shu-pei stated that according to data from the Department of Urban Development, the quotation submitted by the architect in February of this year for the total cost of 8 sunshades was approximately NT$14.05 million. However, just three months later, when the Department of Urban Development applied for funds from the Urban Development Fund, the total budget had surged to NT$49.66 million, an increase of over 3.5 times.

Among these, the lighting engineering costs increased significantly from the original NT$330,000 to NT$5.84 million, a growth of over 17 times.

Chien Shu-pei said that the Department of Urban Development, which recently issued a press release "refuting false accusations," allegedly deliberately "concealed" the most crucial cost estimation pages when providing the design report, attempting to evade supervision. However, after being exposed through crude methods such as page numbering inconsistencies and discrepancies with the table of contents, the relevant information was supplemented.

She stated that upon further review, the design and supervision fees for Taipei's sunshades alone amounted to NT$9.91 million. Including expenditures for the umbrella body, equipment, and construction, the overall cost is close to NT$60 million, making the average total cost per sunshade 8 times that of New Taipei City's single unit cost.

Ma Yu-wen also stated that New Taipei City completed 2 units in approximately 7 months from announcement to completion. In contrast, Taipei City proposed the plan in a city government meeting in May last year, and over a year later, not a single screw has been seen. She believes that Mayor Chiang Wan-an is guilty and his administrative achievements are lacking, thus demanding relevant departments to rush execution, causing confusion at the grassroots level.

Chen Yu-hsin pointed out major doubts in the procurement process. According to data from the Taipei City New Construction Office, which is responsible for construction, the announced project name and content for the "Project Pavement and Ancillary Facilities Renewal Contract" tendered in February and awarded in March of this year did not mention sunshades at all. However, the formal contract content included related text such as "including sunshades."

He questioned that the significant discrepancy between the tender announcement and the contract content is tantamount to "shooting first and then drawing the target," deliberately circumventing normal procurement procedures.

The three stated that Mayor Chiang Wan-an is squandering taxpayers' money solely to create a "fig leaf" for his hollow political achievements. They demand that the Taipei City Department of Government Ethics immediately launch an investigation to fully clarify whether the overall decision-making and execution process involved administrative negligence.

The Department of Urban Development responded through a press release, stating that the demonstration project for sunshade facilities in the Xinyi Planning District is an important part of Taipei City's efforts to promote urban cooling and climate adaptation policies. It is not a simple purchase of commercially available sunshades, but a public engineering project that combines improvements to the pedestrian environment, urban landscape design, and cooling needs.

The budget for the 8 sunshade facilities in this project is approximately NT$49.66 million. The Department of Urban Development explained that design and supervision fees of approximately NT$9.91 million were also appropriated in accordance with public engineering regulations. Among these, the average material cost per unit for the sunshade body, electromechanical lighting, and drainage facilities is approximately NT$1.46 million, with the remainder being infrastructure, construction, and related supporting costs for the overall public engineering project.

Furthermore, the design and supervision fees are independently appropriated according to law, and professionally, the total project cost is not divided by the number of facilities to serve as the price for a single facility, to avoid misunderstandings. (Editor: Chang Ming-kun) 1150623

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