In an effort to prevent civil servants from misusing the National Travel Card program by buying consumer goods instead of using the scheme for travel expenses, the Cabinet recently banned the cross-regional purchase of gold jewelry with the card. In the last few days, there have been rumors that the purchase of electronic appliances will also be banned, resulting in quite a backlash from bureaucrats. One really doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about the stratagems devised by civil servants to buy consumer goods.
The whole problem with vacation subsidies can actually be traced back to changes made by the government at different stages of the nation's development and in different contexts. The government finally realized that "rest facilitates even greater productivity" and so reformulated its original system of rewards for not taking vacations into a system of vacation subsidies.
In order to encourage people to broaden their experience by traveling abroad more often, the subside for traveling abroad was NT$12,000 while the subsidy for domestic travel was only NT$6,000. Nevertheless, most bureaucrats chose to travel within Taiwan -- because they were not required to keep receipts for their expenses.
During the KMT era, I urged the government to understand the dilemma facing the domestic tourism and leisure industry -- namely, that in every seven-day week, there were only two business days on the weekend while all other days were "off days." Of course, it was impossible to improve the climate for the tourism industry under those conditions.
In the period when Huang Ta-chou (
A new opportunity to resolve these problems presented itself when Premier Yu Shyi-kun came into office and began to make tourism a priority of his administration. The government knew that only by giving local businesses in the tourism industry more opportunity at off-peak times could the industry improve the quality of its services and develop its potential for drawing visitors from abroad.
Along these lines, the National Travel Card is intended to be used by civil servants staying overnight outside of their home regions during off-peak times. It was hoped that the system would achieve results the original system never did achieve -- making civil servants the engine driving the development of the domestic tourism industry. Unfortunately, the civil servants must have misunderstood the government's original motivation. Otherwise, the problems we see today would never have arisen.
I urge all civil servants to understand the government's purpose in providing "bonuses" at a time when many industries have been impacted by SARS and forced to lay off workers or reduce salaries. Civil servants were among those least affected by the epidemic. They should take advantage of travel subsidies to escape the pressure of work and truly relax both mentally and physically.
Their spending as tourists helps the domestic tourism industry and assists the government in supporting that industry. This is the best and most direct way to actively support the nation.
Stanley Yen is the honorary chairman of the Taiwan Visitors Association.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US