The date for finalizing a bill on pension reform for military retirees has been delayed indefinitely, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, citing the need for further discussions between the public and responsible agencies.
Lai made the remarks before leaving the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, where he had been scheduled to give an administrative report.
Lai’s report was delayed and the proceedings halted after Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said more communication was required.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The military pension reform bill was initially listed as one of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s top priorities in the legislative session that opened yesterday.
However, the Executive Yuan had, following a discussion on Monday, reached a consensus with the DPP caucus to delay finalizing the Cabinet’s proposal, Lai said, adding that there is not yet a timetable on how long the bill would be delayed.
The issue requires further discussion among the Veterans Affairs Council, other agencies and the public, he said.
Lai did not give reporters a definite answer on whether the pension floor for military retirees, tentatively set at NT$38,990 — higher than the NT$32,160 floor for retired public-school teachers and civil servants — would undergo further changes, saying only it was among the topics to be discussed.
He added that he empathized with Su and lawmakers over their decision to break up the meeting after an incident earlier yesterday, when 62-year-old retired colonel Miao Te-sheng (繆德生) fell from a height of about 6m while climbing the wall of a legislative building in a protest against the proposed bill.
Miao was in a coma as of press time last night.
Earlier in the day, retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) delivered a petition addressed to Su after he was briefly hospitalized after fainting during scuffles that broke out during the protest.
Legislative Yuan Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) accepted the protesters’ petition on behalf of Su and said he would distribute copies to lawmakers.
The legislature would do all it can to continue discussions on the matter and find a solution that is acceptable to everyone, he added.
The petition called on the Legislative Yuan to delay reviewing the bill on pension cuts for military retirees, because the Presidential Office’s Pension Reform Committee had broken a promise it made in May last year that a bill would not be tendered by the Ministry of National Defense before extensive communication was carried out between the office and retirees.
The bill on pension reforms for military retirees should be halted, so that it can be proposed in tandem with the bill targeting other workers’ pensions, Wu said, adding that this would help all pension cuts to be implemented at once, thereby preventing a scenario in which the cuts need to be amended later, as was the case with the DPP’s initial amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) in 2016.
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