New Party plans to cut navy's budget over missed meeting

New Party legislators planned yesterday to cut the Navy's budget in Monday's budget review meeting, allegedly in retaliation over a meeting missed by chief of the navy Chang Wen-ping (張文平), the Chinese-language media reported yesterday.

New Party legislators, Chang and other top navy officials were scheduled to meet yesterday morning about issues related to the navy's budget for the coming fiscal year.

But navy headquarters abruptly canceled the meeting at about 10am yesterday.

According to an unidentified source, the reason behind the sudden cancelation was the leaking of the navy's "inflated budget" to the media several days ago, the report said, compelling navy top brass to hold emergency meetings to solve the issue.

During a legislative review of the defense budget on Thursday, Hsieh Chi-ta (謝啟大), a New Party legislator, demanded that the navy stop paying exorbitant amounts for Lafayette warships, as rumor had it that French officials had been infringing on their contracts with Taiwan by paying extra commissions.

The navy explained that the entire warship deal had been paid in full.