In the News

PCC minister tackles Taiwan’s public construction ills

Public Construction Commission Minister Lee Hong-yuan believes effective interministerial collaboration and dialogue can greatly improve Taiwan’s public construction quality. (Photo courtesy of PCC)

• Publication Date：09/25/2011
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  Meg Chang

Tasked with overseeing Taiwan’s public construction programs, which usually amount to over NT$500 billion (US$16.9 billion) a year, Public Construction Commission Minister Lee Hong-yuan has been making his presence felt by addressing the root causes of the problems now faced by Taiwan’s public construction.

In an interview with Taiwan Today Sept. 6, the outspoken official provided a candid diagnosis of the quality of the country’s public facilities and offered cures for chronic ills such as the ongoing land subsidence that is a constant threat to the ROC’s national land planning.

“On the whole, the quality of Taiwan’s public construction leaves much to be desired,” the minister said. “My mission is to transform the PCC into a government think tank that ensures the safety of the country’s public facilities.”

According to Lee, any public construction project costing over NT$1 million will go into a PCC database, which contains detailed information on more than 200,000 such cases. “Based on the data and our professional evaluation, the PCC can fairly accurately predict which projects are doomed to fail.”

The minister said most of the problems result from the way Taiwan’s public construction projects are implemented, and the situation is particularly precarious at nonengineering agencies that lack the necessary technical capabilities to assess and oversee such projects.

Take the Council for Indigenous Peoples, for example. “Projects by the CIP are often small in scale, located in mountainous areas and almost always highly challenging in terms of engineering practices,” Lee said. This has resulted in a fairly high percentage of CIP cases being managed by contractors with questionable track records. “This state of affairs certainly bodes ill in terms of construction quality.”

The first thing Lee did after he assumed his post in this April was to establish a traceability system for all projects based on the information in the database, as a reference when selecting qualified bidders. “Half of the problems can be solved by prohibiting unqualified contractors from taking part in the bidding process and closely reviewing projects in the planning stages,” he said.

The commission also intends to propose a fundamental change in the way public construction projects are managed. “It is perhaps more advisable for agencies such as the CIP and public educational institutions to hand over their procurements to government bodies with engineering capabilities,” Lee said.

“This approach could ensure construction quality and allow these organizations to focus on their core mission.” Lee said the issue may require extensive cross-agency negotiations because it involves changes in budgeting practices and organizational culture, “but it warrants consideration.”

Another mission high on the PCC’s agenda is to revitalize idle public facilities built nationwide over the past decade at a total cost of over NT$36 billion. “Most of these facilities stem from irresponsible campaign promises. Some should not have been built in the first place.”

Prime examples include parking towers in the countryside and fishing ports in odd locations that have never docked a boat. Local governments often continue burning money just to make the facilities appear operational. Some buildings have become idle because of changing social circumstances, such as vacant classrooms resulting from smaller enrollments following Taiwan’s declining birth rate. “In addition to wasting state money, such unused space is becoming a blind spot in public security,” he added.

“The PCC is actively working with local governments to get the most use out of these facilities, such as transforming them into social housing units or public dormitories,” Lee said, adding that the council provides professional consultation, evaluation and technical support for such projects.

The PCC can work out an exit plan for agencies tasked with running facilities that are hopelessly useless, including dealing with the complicated administrative regulations. “If a project is destined to fall flat, it makes more sense to cut losses by abandoning it or dismantling unnecessary facilities than to keep injecting money into something that is going nowhere.”

Lee said he had advised against a proposal by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to expand sections of the South Link Highway, because he did not see any additional traffic in the future to justify the expansion. Besides, it will be too difficult for the local government to maintain the roads, he added. “We will not hesitate to say no to projects that serve no purpose.”

The minister made headlines in July with a bold plan to address the continuing land subsidence along Taiwan’s western coast. The NT$52.8 billion initiative will see nearly 1,000 deep-water wells in Changhua and Yunlin counties sealed over the next 10 years. Most of the wells are managed by local irrigation associations and the state-run Taiwan Water Corp. and Taiwan Sugar Corp.

“Overpumping of groundwater has resulted in land subsidence affecting one-tenth of Taiwan’s western coastal regions and endangering the Taiwan High Speed Rail,” Lee said. While the issue is highly technical in nature, it could become politically complicated, for it will affect many entities that depend on these wells for their water supply. “Therefore, the PCC presented very strong scientific evidence to support the correlation it found between these wells and the land subsidence.”

The PCC well-capping plan is expected to effectively halt land subsidence and ensure the safety of the THSR. (CNA)

The PCC is working with all parties involved to secure water supplies to replace the groundwater. “For example, the TWC will have to propose new policies for water resource management, including recycling waste water, installing water saving devices and repairing old pipes.” If properly executed, the plan will ensure homeland security and THSR safety, the minister said.

According to Lee, solutions to most existing problems require dialogue and coordination among government bodies, practices which are not part of Taiwan’s administrative culture. “What we are trying to do is to create some successful cases to underscore the importance of cross-agency coordination, and show how dialogue is required in the course of consensus formation and policy implementation.”

According to the ROC government-restructuring plan, the PCC will be disbanded in 2012, with its operations transferred to the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Transportation, and Public Construction and National Development Commission.

Before that happens, Lee said, he will continue focusing his efforts on inspiring PCC staffers to tackle problems with both engineering and nonengineering measures. “As long as government agencies change their ‘business-as-usual’ approach and establish genuine partnerships among themselves, most problems can be solved, even without a task-specific agency like the PCC.” (THN)

Write to Meg Chang at meg.chang@mail.gio.gov.tw