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KMT to postpone planned cut in city councilors' salaries

The KMT plans to propose another legislative review of the newly passed regulations governing pay scales for elected local representatives, to allay the anger of those who had their salaries cut.

Tuesday's passage of the regulations caused a backlash among Taipei and Kaohsiung City councilors, each of whom had their income cut by as much as NT$800,000 a year.

The speakers of the two city councils had met with Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Tuesday afternoon to express their concern.

Yesterday, the KMT's legislative caucus decided to push through a sunset clause postponing the application of the new rules on the two city councils until the next term.

If passed, the clause will leave the pay scales of the current councils intact.

With the legislative session ending tomorrow, the legislature has one more day to review and pass the sunset clause.

The clause is expected to pass without difficulty, given the KMT's majority in the legislature.

Each of the two opposition parties, the DPP and the New Party, are expected to send the issue to an internal open vote, which analysts say are also likely to produce a result in favor of the clause.

In contrast to the pay cut on the two city councils, the new regulations raised the pay scales of local level representatives by as much as three times.

Meanwhile, KMT officials continued to deny yesterday that the passage of the regulations was in any way a strategic vote-buying tactic.

But DPP lawmaker Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), who is also the manager for DPP presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) campaign headquarters, insisted the regulations amounted to a vote-buying act.
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