KMT wants apology for Ma Ying-jeou

Despite the Minister of the Interior's back-pedalling Monday evening on comments made earlier in the day on Taipei City Government's policy on earthquake compensation, the KMT legislative caucus yesterday threatened to boycott the ministry's legislative bills and related budgets unless the minister apologizes to Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

"Without an apology from Yu to Mayor Ma, I will boycott him and refuse to review the legislative bills from the ministry in the (legislature's) Home and Nations' Committee," said Apollo Chen (陳學聖), who represents the caucus on the legislature's Home and Nations committee and who later confirmed to the Taipei Times that he was speaking for the caucus.

Chen was speaking at a press conference in the Legislative Yuan, held to make a public demand for an apology to Mayor Ma from Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲).

He said, "Since the city's compensation standards were set by current President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Yu's comments were obviously aimed at attacking Ma in person, not the policy."

"What Yu needs to do is to think about helping local governments to grant as much compensation as possible to victims, but instead he has just used those victims for political combat," said KMT legislative whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世).

Mayor Ma announced Sunday that Taipei City Government would grant NT$1 million per deceased victim and NT$200,000 per seriously injured victim in Taipei City, while the Executive Yuan decided Sunday evening to pay NT$300,000 per deceased victim.

Minister Yu pledged Monday to punish the city government by postponing the ministry's contributions to the city's community activities, but changed his position in the evening.

Also on Monday morning, Premier Yu Shyi-kun, without the knowledge of Minister Yu, had issued a public assurance of the Executive Yuan's respect for the city government's right to pay the compensation it announced Sunday.

KMT lawmaker Alex Tsai (蔡正元), said, "If Yu had postponed the MOI's subventions, Taipei City, I would in the future have boycotted the ministry's budgets in the Legislative Yuan," Tsai said.

The Ministry of the Interior issued a further statement yesterday afternoon, re-emphasizing that it respected the authority of local government.

But the statement did not contain an apology.

"Whether Minister Yu apologizes to Mayor Ma is a matter for his understanding of ethics," said Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), a Taipei City Government spokesman.