Lawmakers kill building budget

The controversy over whether legislators should be involved in proposing government budgets was the subject of heated debate yesterday in the legislature.

The uproar followed a statement Thursday by Lin Chuan (林全), head of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS, 主計處), that the Cabinet had placed a budget of NT$5.3 billion at legislators' disposal to fund local governments' small construction projects (小型工程補助款).

Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) insisted that legislators should be allowed to "make suggestions" to the Cabinet about local government construction projects.

"Each legislator should have at least NT$100 million as his quota. Otherwise, [we] would rather have none," Wang said following inter-party negotiations held over lunch yesterday to discuss what to do with the budget.

Wang added that he had twice refused Lin's request to hold inter-party negotiations on the matter because the amount was not large enough to be distributed fairly.

The subsidies for local governments' small construction projects have previously been suspected of being used as secret funds to finance construction projects for the purpose of securing votes (綁樁) for -- and enhancing the standing of -- certain legislators. When Lin made public the amount of this year's subsidies, an accusation was immediately directed at him by members of the legislature's opposition alliance that he had plotted to set a trap to bring legislators and the legislature into disrepute.

The legislature's secretary-general, Lin Si-san (林錫山), lashed out at Lin last week, arguing that the Cabinet had illegally disbursed approximately NT$33 billion to local governments to benefit certain DPP legislators.

Wang yesterday also said that some DPP legislators had obtained subsidies, but he refused to give the names of the legislators.

KMT legislator Chu Li-luan (朱立倫) said that there was at least NT$200 billion in the national budget which was allocated for local governments' small construction projects, and which could be used by legislators to secure votes. He said a total of NT$50 billion had also been specially allocated for DPP legislators to use.

"The amount of NT$5.3 billion is the DGBAS's [tactic] to blur the focus of the [wider] issue. The Cabinet should therefore devise a mechanism [for allocating subsidies to local governments] and make it as transparent as possible," Chu said.

Lin, however, denied that the Cabinet had disbursed any subsidies to DPP legislators.

"The Cabinet stopped allocating any subsidies to local governments last May 20. The remaining budget was used in reconstruction work following natural disasters," Lin told reporters yesterday.

The legislature, however, following yesterday's inter-party negotiation, reached a consensus to delete the budget of NT$5.3 billion.

"The DPP's legislative caucus fully supports [the decision]. Legislators have the right to review the government's budget, but no right to propose a budget," the DPP's legislative whip Chou Po-lun (周伯倫) told reporters.

Yesterday's negotiation concluded that Lin and Minister of Finance Yen Chin-chang (顏慶章) had been "obviously negligent of their duties" in financing local governments, and decided that both would later be brought to a full meeting of the legislature to consider their responsibility and discuss any punishment.