With strong support from lawmakers, the Legislative Yuan has passed the regulations governing expenditure payments to local elected representatives and overhead subsidies to village and borough chiefs (地方民代費用支給及村里長專務補助費補助條例). The new regulations are supposed to meet public expectations in standard-izing the wages and benefits of government employees. However, proposed in haste during the runup to the presidential election, the regulations obviously contain many political considerations, so their appropriateness and legitimacy have come into question.
First of all, the so-called "standards" in the regulations are in fact itemized ceilings based on the standards of Taipei City, which are much coveted by representatives in counties and former provincial municipalities. The rules provide no concrete, objective basis as to the actual content of the items. They are instead left to the representatives themselves to decide, with no operational standards for implementation.
On the one hand, the regulations stipulate a NT$45,000 ceiling on overhead subsidies for village and borough chiefs; and on the other, it says local governments should raise the necessary funds themselves. If local governments had sufficient financial resources, they would long ago have followed Taipei City's lead in establishing the NT$45,000 standard. Why should they wait for a law to this effect to be made? In fact, the regulations are unrealistic and feed on illusions.
That the county and township authorities were seriously short of independent financial resources was the only reason why an extremely unfair "one country, two systems" phenomenon exists at the local government level. Now, by generously raising the subsidy to NT$45,000, the Executive Yuan has obviously used a law to increase the financial burdens on local governments. Therefore, the central government should also have increased funding to support this increase. But the draft bill prohibits the "application to higher authorities for subsidies."
This not only goes against the legal obligations of the Executive Yuan, but may also violate the Law Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (
Since elected local representatives hold non-salaried positions, they require subsidies to ensure that they can perform their duties properly. This is also the purpose of Articles 52 and 61 of the Local Autonomy Law (
Given the hollowness of the regulations, their implementation will have to depend heavily on the "conscience" and "self-restraint" of local representatives. As a result, these regulations -- which throw the problems back onto the same local governments -- are worse than no regulations at all. In future, no matter what the local elected bodies do, they will inevitably come under criticism once again. This kind of deliberate blurring of the issue will cause much damage to local representatives and tense up relations.
To solve a problem, one should find the cause. The clause prohibiting local governments from asking higher-level authorities for subsidies is not legally binding in the first place, as it is only part of an explication of the regulations. The Executive Yuan must still draw up special budgets in accordance with the provisions in the Law Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures, and share the financial burden on local governments that the new regulations they have created.
Liu Wen-shih is director of the Office of Legislation at the Taipei County Government.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry