Lawmakers burned the midnight oil last night to pass one of two budgetary bills submitted by the Executive Yuan.
The legislative session was originally scheduled to come to a close yesterday, but lawmakers decided to extend the session until today to pass a long list of nearly 50 pieces of legislation still awaiting attention.
A total of 119 pieces of legislation were put on the legislature's agenda for the final two days of the session.
Along with the passage of the budgetary bill, however, the legislature adopted an opposition resolution recommending that Lin Chuan (林全), director-general of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), be referred to the Control Yuan for investigation over "irregularities" in the allocation of a NT$5.3 billion fund to subsidize small construction projects at the local level. Also in the resolution, the lawmakers proposed that the legislature pass a censure against Lin.
The subsidy fund in question was covered in an additional budget bill, which has been proposed as a means of increasing government spending and stimulating domestic demand.
While the Executive Yuan had originally proposed NT$80 billion for the budget, two controversial items totaling NT$18.4 billion (including the NT$5.3 billion) were cut and three others totaling NT$7.3 billion were frozen by the opposition-controlled legislature.
The NT$5.3 billion subsidy fund, in which lawmakers would have retained a right to recommend where the money should be spent, had reportedly been earmarked by the DGBAS to win opposition lawmakers' support for the passage of the budget bill. But lawmakers decided that the fund was unnecessary and that the allocation of the fund involved "obvious irregularities."
For example, the opposition said, the fund included NT$2 billion to subsidize projects to develop "urban and rural features," which were already scrapped by lawmakers when they were reviewing the Executive Yuan's main budget bill late last year.
The opposition called this behavior one that "violates the system and seriously disdains the legislature." The frozen projects included a NT$227.8 million business fund for the Taiwan Railway Administration and another NT$7.12 billion non-business transportation development fund.
Lawmakers decided that the Executive Yuan cannot draw upon these two funds until the Executive Yuan submits revision proposals to the funds.
Though the legislature was supposed to continue to review another budget bill concerning state-run enterprises immediately after the passage of the additional budget bill, it turned out not to be the case.
Some opposition lawmakers asked for a recess, after the DPP protested the opposition's decision to cut the budget.
The meeting did not reopen as of press time last night and the entire day was full of stops and starts.
After three pieces of non-controversial legislation were passed around 10am, meetings were halted. They did not restart until early evening.
Legislation that did pass in the morning were amendments to the Law Governing Legislators' Exercise of Power (
The amendments were made in line with last year's constitutional reform, in which the power to ratify the personnel appointments of the Judicial Yuan, Control Yuan and Examination Yuan was transferred from the National Assembly to the legislature.
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