A legislative committee is working to amend the nation’s transportation law to allow a government takeover of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation’s (THSRC) operations. The amendments passed an initial review on Monday.
The THSRC is a private entity, which has been dealing with financial difficulties in recent years. It has said that it could go bankrupt by March or April. The company had approached the legislature last week hoping to restructure its financial plan, but was turned down.
Right now the government and THSRC are struggling to come up with solutions to the corporation’s financial woes. But they have been hampered by the fact that laws governing cooperative efforts with the private sector are unclear. They lack penalties or the option of a hostile government takeover in the case of mismanagement.
On Monday, the legislature’s transportation committee quickly passed six amendments to the law.
The revised articles stipulate that if a private entity overseeing the operation of a government project refuses to comply with government orders, executives in the private company can incur a fine of between NT$100,000 (US$3,300) and NT$25 million (US$845,000). Further resistance from the company could result in another fine of between NT$200,000(US$6,600) and NT$50 million (US$1.7 million).
The amendments still have to pass a second and third reading in the legislature before they can go into effect.