The Legislative Yuan yesterday decided the Executive Yuan should retract its budget bill for fiscal year 2001, submitted by Tang Fei's (唐飛) Cabinet, and will accept another from Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), who assumed the post yesterday.
The request was immediately accepted by Chang, who promised that the budget bill would be retracted today.
Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said the decision, based on an inter-party consensus, was formulated to cope with the Cabinet reshuffle following Tang's sudden resignation on Tuesday.
"To abide by the spirit of the Constitution and safeguard the public interest, we request the Executive Yuan re-examine its budget bill for fiscal year 2001, as well as its policy proposal before sending them to the legislature for review," Wang said.
This is the first time that a premier has stepped down when the central government's budget bill is under review in the Legislative Yuan.
Tang had presented the bill to the legislature four days before his resignation, and the bill was initially set to move on to committees for review next week.
Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), whip of the majority KMT caucus in the legislature, said it was logical for the Executive Yuan to retract the bill now that the Cabinet is going to be reshuffled, because a budget bill is supposed to represent the policies of the premier and his Cabinet ministers.
"When the premier has been replaced, there is a need to check if any adjustment should be made to the policy priorities," Tseng said.
The process is expected to delay the passage of the budget bill. According to the Budget Law, the central government's budget bill should pass the legislature by late November at the latest in readiness for the start of the next fiscal year on Jan. 1.
In the case of a delay, however, the Executive Yuan can draw on money from the budget in advance to cover personnel and current expenses to prevent a shutdown of the government.
Chang, the incumbent vice premier and a former legislator, said his Cabinet would submit a new budget bill to the legislature as soon as possible.
Chang said there would not be any major changes in terms of the Cabinet's policy priorities, though some minor adjustments would be made to the budget bill to include new measures such as a pay cuts for the president and vice president.
Chang promised he would strengthen communication with lawmakers to try to improve the interaction between the administrative and legislative branches.
"Hopefully our political culture, which is based mainly on antagonism, will be changed and move toward one based on mutual trust and interaction," Chang said.
Opposition lawmakers, however, were pessimistic about the new Cabinet.
Lai Shyh-bao (
"The appointment of Chang as the new premier is based on President Chen's personal will and is unhelpful to political stability," Lai said.
Members of the KMT caucus called on Chen to administer his government under the constitutional framework and according to the principles of party politics, saying his "government for all the people" had been left "bankrupt" in the resulting political commotion.
"It's totally unconstitutional to appoint a DPP member to head the Cabinet and form a minority government," KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (
The KMT caucus demanded that the party leadership prevent any KMT member from accepting the DPP's offer to join the Cabinet, unless such an offer was based on party-to-party negotiations.
Tang, a former minister of defense from the KMT, was appointed premier by President Chen in May in an agreement that stopped short of a DPP-KMT deal.
Tang was consequently asked not to participate in KMT activities. Disagreement between Tang and Chen, notably on whether to continue construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, was widely thought to be the cause behind Tang's resignation.
Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, said they would not deliberately act against the DPP administration just because it was a minority government.
"We will watch the performance of the new Cabinet," said People First Party caucus convener Chen Chen-sheng (
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the