The Government Information Office's (GIO) budget was blocked in pan-blue dominated legislative committees yesterday, as the debate surrounding a new media watchdog deepened.
During a review of next year's GIO budget, a major proportion of the office's funds were frozen until the National Communications Committee (NCC) is established. A motion to block funds passed the legislature's Budget and Final Accounts committee and Education and Culture committee, sparking a row between opposition and governing party committee members.
`Irrational'
"The committee has never been so irrational and violent before," said DPP Legislator Wang Shih-hsun (王世勛), a convenor of the legislature's education and culture committee. "We are sorry to see pan-blue lawmakers take their revenge on the GIO and act as an attacker for a television station."
The pan-blue's move came after the GIO last week fined television station TVBS for being 100 percent foreign-funded -- a move that pan-blue critics said was revenge for the channel's exposure of government corruption.
At the proposal of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) committee member Joanna Lei (雷倩), a majority of committee members from the KMT and People First Party (PFP) voted that apart from staff and basic maintenance expenses, the GIO budget would be frozen until the NCC was established.
Lei said that out of the GIO's budget of NT$4 billion (US$120 million), only NT$88 million was allocated to the NCC, showing a deliberate effort to obstruct its establishment.
GIO Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智), who walked out of the meeting, said that he felt extreme regret at the way the pan-blue committee members bullied their way into getting the measures passed.
Salary targeted
Aside from freezing non-essential parts of the budget, a further NT$288,000 that the pan-blue committee members deemed to be irregularities in Yao's salary and NT$636,000 in "special expenses" were also slashed.
DPP committee member Kuan Pi-ling (
Kuan said they "go crazy and collectively attack their prey whenever they hear anything about the GIO."
Kuan added that committee members had been acting rationally when discussing controversial issues, but that attitude went out the window yesterday with the KMT's motion to block the GIO's budget.
DPP Legislator Lan Mei-chin (藍美津) said that Lei's proposal was ridiculous, because it does not make sense for the committee to halt a budget before it is reviewed.
"I'm sorry to see the committee commit such a technical error and become the `assassin' for a television station," she said.
The NCC has been the source of ongoing friction between the pan-blue and pan-green camps. At the end of last month, the organic law of the National Communications Commission (NCC, 國家通訊傳播委員會組織法), passed its third and final reading, authorizing the commission's establishment.
The NCC law was promulgated by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Nov. 9. Under the law, party caucuses should recommend 11 members to make up a NCC review committee, divided according to the percentage of seats each party holds in the legislature.
KMT Central Policy Committee Executive Director Tseng Yung-chuan (
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