Typhoon victims heckled Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday when he visited a military camp where 400 displaced people from Kaohsiung County’s Taoyuan Township (桃源) have been accommodated.
Upon Liu’s arrival, he was welcomed by a group of people who cheered for and shook hands with him. However, a man accused the Executive Yuan of arranging “fake victims” to greet Liu, saying that “they are from Pingtung County and do not live here. What are they doing here?”
Dissatisfied with Liu’s whirlwind stop at the camp, a woman asked Liu to listen to what victims had to say.
“Talk to us face to face. This is what we want. Just taking a look around here, would he understand our feelings?” she asked.
Executive Yuan spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) dismissed the allegations that fake victims were brought to the camp.
He said the two people made a scene because they did not receive a relief allowance of NT$5,000 because their names were not on the list.
“It was an administrative mistake, and we have fixed it,” the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, in response to media reports that the government has decided to halt a prefabricated housing project, Liu said the government would evaluate victims’ demands for temporary prefabricated houses before erecting the structures.
PREFERABLE
Liu said it was preferable to resettle displaced victims from military camps or veterans’ houses, where they temporarily reside, to permanent new homes instead of prefabricated houses.
“It’s not that we won’t build prefabricated houses anymore, but that prefabricated houses will be built based on actual demand to prevent waste,” Liu said.
Liu made the remarks while visiting typhoon victims at a veterans’ house in Neipu Township (內埔), Pingtung County.
The veterans’ house is the temporary home to about 100 displaced Rukai Aborigines from Jiamu Village (佳暮).
Some victims said they were grateful for the temporary accommodation, where the facilities were better than in the shelters, but they still looked forward to going back to their homeland.
Also during the trip, Liu told residents at the shelter that the Government Information Office would publish a weekly “reconstruction newsletter” that will be circulated among the typhoon victims starting on Sept. 1 to allow them to keep track of the government’s efforts at reconstruction.
>ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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