At a time when the world is concerned about global warming, when the government is pushing energy conservation and reduced carbon emissions, media reports showed that Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Philip Yang (楊永明) racked up an electricity bill of more than NT$20,000 at his 130m2 residence for July/August. This is many times more than an average family would use. It seems that the man in charge of announcing the government’s policy on the environment is setting a rather bad example.
In his defense, Yang said he had a young child at home and needed to have the air conditioning on all day. He then criticized the press for writing that he was “harming Taiwan” by wasting electricity. The GIO followed this by bringing out records of previous agency heads, pointing out that GIO chiefs when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power also had high electricity bills.
The press dug deeper. Some media reports said that the July/August bill the year before last for the residence of Greater Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) was as much as NT$120,000. And if you think that was high, how about the bills run up by former premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) residence, which topped NT$300,000. Of course, one must remember that these bills included electricity used by their respective retinues.
These astronomical bills have roused the ire of the public. It takes some gall to bang on in public about the importance of conserving energy only to waste it in private. Worse still, these officials are not even paying for it: The taxpayer is.
That’s not to say that the individuals singled out here are the worst offenders. By the same token, just because someone has not been named does not mean they are not just as wasteful; it simply means that their records have not been made public. However, putting aside the actual figures for a minute and how they compare with the average bill of NT$3,000 paid by ordinary households, the most striking thing about this is how widespread the phenomenon seems to be.
Even though the story of the astronomical bills has just broken and senior officials have been found to be saying one thing and doing another, some good has already come of it. The universal public condemnation has obliged Yang to apologize and to look into the cause of these excessive bills. Apparently it was because of old equipment in the building, something which has now been addressed.
Yang missed an opportunity here. He should have apologized to the public and investigated the problem instead of dragging others into the fray. It would have been perfect if he had used his own experience to promote policy. He could have reminded the public of the importance of checking their electrical equipment and not being lured into the false economy of not buying the latest model. Old equipment laps up electricity at an astonishing rate, which makes it important to upgrade. He could have turned the situation around for himself quite easily and better promoted energy conservation.
These electricity bills have also caught the attention of the Control Yuan, which has decided to launch a comprehensive review. Senior officials with energy-inefficient households and officials or public institutions who fritter away taxpayers’ money may well find themselves on the wrong side of the Control Yuan’s attention.
However, it would be even better if the government set a standard for amenities usage levels, and required any officials or institutions that exceed these standards to foot the bill themselves. Why should the taxpayer have to bear the brunt of official excesses and abuses?
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