In this article, I intend to analyze the government's reconstruction and relief efforts for the 921 earthquake (
1. With respect to the relief fund granted by the government, NT$1 million for each death and NT$50,000 for each injured person -- why is the amount higher than the relief payments granted for the death and injuries caused by past natural disasters? Will the treatment of all the deaths and injuries caused by future natural calamities follow this precedent? A more substantive question is whether a higher death and injury toll means more benefits for survivors? Or is all of this simply because of the impending elections?
Any taxpayer would hope that the taxes he or she pays are helping those in real need. The most important issue is how to take care of survivors. Television news broadcasts a report of a 5-year-old girl who survived the quake, but her face had been severely injured. The doctor said that the little girl is lucky to be alive, but she faces a long period of rehabilitation.
Another little girl also survived the ordeal after being buried under rubble for several days. However, her leg will have to be amputated. What can possibly be accomplished by giving people such as these a meager relief payment of NT$50,000 each? By granting NT$1 million for each death, the total relief payout for the 2,000 killed will reach more than NT$2 billion. I believe that this money should, instead, be spent to establish a foundation to take care of those who have been maimed or disabled by the quake. They still have a long life to lead, and they are the people the taxpayer should be supporting.
2. A newspaper reported on Oct. 5 that the director general of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, Liu San-chi (劉?T錡), said the previously estimated total for relief funds (NT$200,000 for each fully collapsed house and NT$100,000 for each partially collapsed house) and the housing rental subsidy (NT$3,000 every month) have escalated from NT$20 billion to NT$40 billion. Furthermore, Vice President Lien Chan (3s戰) has suggested waiving the National Health Insurance fees of quake victims for six months and extending the same kind of waiver for Labor and Farmer Insurance fees. All these suggestions were approved. Reportedly, the waiver in fees for the National Health Insurance alone will cost the National Health Insurance Bureau NT$700 million in total. The "jobs in exchange for relief" (以?u代賑) program launched by the Council of Labor Affairs will cost several hundred million dollars as well. Reportedly, a more than insignificant number of "fake quake victims" are coming forward and complicating the scene, as well as increasing the number of people waiting in line to claim relief payments.
According to the Social Relief Law, the issuance of emergency relief should be restricted to households unable to provide burial for a deceased member or households made financially destituted by the injury of a family member. The law also requires that the relief should take the form of cash disbursement, the amount to be decided by provincial or municipal authorities. This is then submitted to the Ministry of the Interior for review.
The disbursement of relief funds after the recent quake is being made without any regard for the relevant laws. The sum was first increased from NT$100,000 to NT$200,000. Premier Vincent Siew (
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