Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pledged yesterday to study the possibility of extending the scope of disaster relief payments to include businesses, were the city to encounter another natural disaster as devastating as Typhoon Nari.
Currently, relief payments are only granted to home owners.
Ma made the remark at a city council meeting yesterday afternoon in response to questions by KMT City Councilor Chen Cheng-the (陳永德).
"If we're to encounter another typhoon like Nari, we might take the severity of the disaster into consideration and adjust the criteria accordingly," Ma said.
Nari, which ravaged the nation between Sept. 16 and Sept. 19, killed 94 people, including 27 in Taipei City.
More than 13 percent of the city, or 37km2 covering 70 boroughs, was seriously flooded.
To help home owners cope with the disastrous effects of the typhoon, the city grants each family NT$5,000 if their home was flooded up to a level of less than 50cm from the ground floor level. A family is eligible for a NT$10,000 grant if the house is flooded to levels between 50cm and 100cm. Families get NT$20,000 if their house gets flooded with more than 100cm of water.
The system has, however, come under much criticism from the public, who says the criteria are far too complicated.
Chen, who criticized the policy as "erroneous," said that it did not make much sense to offer relief funds to home owners alone.
"Take Sungshan District's Yungchi borough for example," Chen said. "There are over 2,000 factories producing custom-made clothing there, but only 15 of them have been granted aid payments."
The other factories were not eligible for aid because, according to the city, they were not legal residents of that area, although they've been doing business there for years, Chen said.
"An erroneous policy is worse than corruption," he said. "The city has issued NT$440 million in relief funds, but what it gets in return is not appreciation but complaints."
Chen added that when Hsu Shui-teh (徐水德) was Taipei mayor, the city issued each family NT$3,000 in relief funds in the aftermath of Typhoon Lynn in 1987. The funds were given to factory proprietors as well as home owners. The policy also disregarded how seriously the houses or shops were flooded.
Chen Jeaw-mei (陳皎眉), director of Taipei's Social Affairs Bureau, however, stood firm on the city's policy.
"We just followed what has been put down by the previous administration," she said.
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