The dark clouds of the 921 earthquake are gradually fading, yet the strong sense of togetherness and the collective sense of devotion and dedication are also gradually dispersing. Meanwhile, the post-disaster relief work has brought to light many real problems -- one of them being a need for money.
Without payment, it it not reasonable to expect people to work for extended periods of time. The gifts of charity will only last for so long. But simply having enough to pay for reconstruction efforts does not guarantee that the quality of the work done will be superior.
The first problem for financing operations is: "Where does the money come from?"
The funds needed for earthquake relief are estimated to be at least NT$300 billion, while some have put the figure closer to NT$500 billion. An enormous amount of money such as this can only be raised from the following methods:
(i) to increase taxes;
(ii) to issue government bonds;
(iii) to print more bank notes and let loose the inflation rate;
(iv) to make postponements so as to address a critical situation, for example, postponing the national annuity program.
By the look of the present situation, increasing taxes in the year of an election would amount to giving oneself a political death sentence. No politician or political party would be willing to take such a risk. Alternatively, in order to raise funds, the other three methods will all have to be adopted at the same time. After all, money will not fall from the sky no matter which party or politician is in power.
The second problem of money is: "How is the money being used?"
Apart from reconstruction efforts, how the money the money is distributed is of critical importance. The government, opposition parties, those in academic circles, and the local governments have proposed many blueprints for rebuilding. Hence, how to implement and integrate all of the above-mentioned aspects of reconstruction becomes a great difficulty. As for the victims of the disaster, they obviously hope the reconstruction will be completed as soon as possible. As a result, how to give consideration to both aspects -- that is, to rebuild and how to do this in an expeditious manner is another difficulty.
If these problems cannot be squarely tackled, it is useless to talk about how successful these projects could be.
The third problem raised by money is: "Where does the money go?"
The reconstruction work will cost several hundreds of billions of dollars, thus both the "white and black paths" (
To raise money is already a difficult issue, but what's even more worrying is the issue of how the money is to be distributed.
Hu Wen-huei is the deputy editor in chief of the Liberty Times.
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