Municipality status debate ignites anew

Central government plans to put the administrative status of local governments on the same level as the special municipalities of Taipei City and Kaohsiung City touched off a political debate yesterday.

The dispute erupted after a Ministry of the Interior forum on amending the Law on Local Gov-ernment Systems (地方制度法), in which the topic of discussion was giving all local governments equal footing.

While the Taipei City Government criticized the reform move as unconstitutional, the Executive Yuan tried to downplay the fuss yesterday morning.

"The Cabinet has no comment on the matter since the Ministry of the Interior is still evaluating the possibility," Cabinet spokesman Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢) told reporters after the Cabinet's weekly closed-door meeting.

But Chuang did say that regardless of how the status of local governments changes, the rights and interests of Taipei City and Kaohsiung City, as guaranteed by the Constitution, wouldn't change.

"The ultimate goal is to see the relationship between central and local governments become similar to that of partners," Chuang said.

"Decentralizing power, money and the appointment of high-ranking officials is one way to achieve the goal," he said.

The Taipei City Government, however, said it would be unconstitutional to put local governments on an equal-footing with Kaohsiung and Taipei cities because the Constitution places the status of the special municipalities at the same level as the Taiwan Provincial Government -- one level higher than that of county and city governments.

"Special municipalities have a unique status guaranteed by the Constitution. It's unconstitutional to treat local governments and special municipalities the same simply because the Taiwan Provincial Government was downsized," said Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修), director of Taipei City's Bureau of Civil Affairs.

After the forum, which included representatives from all of the local governments and the special municipalities, Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) said that the ministry's plan is to upgrade local governments' status to be equal to that of the two special municipalities, rather than downgrading the special municipalities.

"We simply want to narrow the gap between the special municipalities and the cities and counties, in terms of administrative status and financial resources," Yu said.

Yu added that the proposal originated under the administration of former minister Chang Po-ya (張博雅), but failed to become law in last legislative session.

Yesterday's forum was the first in a series of meetings that the ministry will hold to discuss how to amend the Law on Local Government Systems.

According to the Constitution, special municipalities enjoy the same administrative status as the provincial government, since they are both under the Executive Yuan.

But since the provincial government was downsized in 1998, city and county governments have also been placed under the Executive Yuan.

Therefore, the ministry says that the special municipalities no longer have a reason to enjoy a higher administrative status than other local governments.

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