Lien seeks more relief aid

Vice president and KMT presidential candidate Lien Chan (3s戰) urged the government yesterday during a top-level party meeting to extend further aid to a number of recipients affected by the Sept. 21 earthquake -- a move that critics labeled as an election ploy.

But a KMT spokesman defended his party's vice chairman yesterday, saying Lien was only urging the government to do what it should do, with or without an upcoming election.

During the party's regular KMT Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday, Lien recommended that the government take measures as soon as possible to pull credit cooperatives of farmers' associations in disaster areas out of financial trouble after the 921 earthquake gave them an extra burden of bad debts. The cooperatives' problems were exacerbated by government demands that they defer calling in loans from clients, said KMT spokesman Huang Hwei-chen (黃輝珍).

According to statistics provided by the finance ministry, farmers' and fishermen's associations in disaster areas suffered a total loss of NT$5.2 billion. Overdue loans at the cooperatives total around NT$150 billion.

Huang said Lien also suggested that temples and churches ruined or damaged in the quake be granted low-interest loans for repairs or reconstruction at the same interest rate as loans offered to private schools. The move would require approximately NT$2 billion, he was quoted as saying.

In addition, Lien asked the government to consider loans or aid to farms where damage was not severe enough to make them eligible for government compensation, and to appropriate money for reconstruction of damaged irrigation systems and road infrastructure in rural areas, and to study how to help residents who have been evacuated from homes situated next to damaged buildings.

Huang said Vice Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) announced the government had also decided to extend a rent subsidy for residents.

But critics said it was obvious that Lien's suggestions were aimed at boosting his standing in preparation for next year's presidential election.

"It is difficult to think otherwise," Herman Chiang (|罹５?, chairman of the department of public administration and policy at National Chunghsing University, said.

"He is playing Santa Claus, handing out gifts even when it's only time for Halloween."

"Lien is now campaigning in former provincial governor James Soong's (宋楚瑜) style: spending money in exchange for support," Chiang said. "What position does the KMT have now to criticize Soong as a `great money giver (?財童?l)' when they are employing the same strategy?"

But Huang denied that Lien's recommendations to the government would cost too much or were made with the election in mind. "The government would take the same measures if the election were not around the corner," Huang said. "His suggestions would only cost a limited amount of money compared with the overall relief spending. And the government has made clear that there is no problem for it to fund disaster relief."

Critics, including the KMT and noticeably President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), have accused Soong of buying favor by squandering government money on local construction projects in his years as provincial governor for his ambition to become president.

While disaster relief must be undertaken, the government should not spend without restraints, considering that its outstanding debt is now already in trillions of NT dollars, Chiang said.