Zhubei City market project budget surges from 550M to 1.4B TWD

Political tensions are rising in Zhubei City regarding fiscal management and stalled infrastructure projects. Chiu Chen-yuan, a mayoral candidate for the Taiwan People's Party, criticized the Zhubei City Government for a significant decline in its surplus, noting that the accumulated surplus dropped from 3.19 billion TWD in 2022 to approximately 1.7 billion TWD by the end of 2025.

In response, the office of Kuomintang Hsinchu County Magistrate candidate Hsu Hsin-ying highlighted the Zhubei East District Market renovation project as a primary example of fiscal mismanagement. Spokesperson Hsu Wei-yuan stated that after Mayor Cheng Chao-fang took office in late 2022, he overturned the original plan established under the previous administration. This decision reportedly caused the project budget to surge from 550 million TWD to 1.4 billion TWD.

The office further claimed that the change in design led to four years of stagnation, wasting over 10 million TWD in prepared construction materials and delaying the project's completion, which was originally scheduled for September 2024.