Wed, Jun 13, 2007 page1

• Budget greenlighted for Friday

  DEADLOCK RESOLVED? The Procedure Committee agreed that the budget bill for fiscal 2007 would be the first item to be reviewed by the legislature on Friday

  • By Shih Hsiu-chuan / STAFF REPORTER
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  The long-stalled central government budget for the current fiscal year, including partial funding for a US arms procurement deal, was finally put on top of the agenda for Friday's plenary session after the pan-blue camp agreed yesterday to decouple it from the Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (中選會組織法).

  The pan-blue dominated Procedure Committee agreed without objection that the budget bill, which has been listed behind the bill to amend the commission's law in the sequence of deliberation for more than half a year, would be the first item to be reviewed on Friday.

  This means the budget bill will clear the legislature before it goes into recess on Friday.

  The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for holding up the budget bill in a bid to get the Democratic Progressive Party to agree to the KMT's proposal to restructure the election commission to give it a pan-blue majority.

  The KMT lawmakers' change of heart came one day after their party's presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), urged the KMT caucus to allow the budget bill to be reviewed ahead of the commission bill and to pass it before the end of the legislative session.

  Ma's appeal, however, stirred speculation that he and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) were competing for any credit due for ending the deadlock.

  DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) had previously accused Ma of masterminding the KMT's linkage of the budget bill to passage of the commission's bill.

  On Jan. 19, the final day of the last legislative session, Ker quoted KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) as saying during a cross-party negotiation meeting that day that Ma had asked the KMT to do whatever it could to get the amendment to the election commission law passed.

  Soon after Ma made his appeal on Monday, a source from Wang's camp said that the speaker had already told Wu and Tseng last Friday that the KMT should delink the two bills.

  "I told the KMT that the budget bill could not be delayed any longer," Wang said on Monday.

  When asked by reporters yesterday about who should get credit for breaking the legislative logjam, Wang downplayed his role.

  "[The U-turn] was to do with Ma. He deserves all the credit," Wang said after hearing that Wu had said "it's nothing to do with who should take the credit. Wang was also involved in the decision-making process."

  Ker told a press conference yesterday that the KMT lawmakers might only pretend to let the budget bill through in a bid to demand the passage of the amendment to the election commission bill as a trade-off.

  "There should be no preconditions for the passage of the budget bill. No unconstitutional bills should be allowed to pass the legislature," he said.

  The Budget Act (預算法) states that the legislature should finish their review of the central government's budget bill one month before the start of the fiscal year -- or by the end of last November.

  Meanwhile, not all budget matters are likely to be passed by the end of the day on Friday.

  The NT$3.3 trillion budget for state-owned enterprises and governmental non-profit funds and the NT$77.3 billion special budget for public construction projects are still listed below the CEC bill on Friday's agenda.

  DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told reporters that the KMT was not really trying to solve the problems arising from the long-stalled budget bill because the other two budgets were still blocked.

  Additional reporting by Flora Wang

  Also see story:
  Editorial: Don't thank Ma if budget bill passes
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