Preferential interest rate cuts mulled for teachers, soldiers and civil servants

The TSU's recent call to halve the 18 percent interest rate on savings enjoyed by soldiers, schoolteachers and government employees has prompted the Cabinet's Central Personnel Administration to admit that while no such plan has been finalized, the idea is under discussion.

"It would violate an agreement signed by the government and the three sectors of the workforce 19 years ago and cause much controversy without a supplementary measure to go along with it," Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋), administration director-general, told a press conference yesterday afternoon.

Lee added that the administration has never pledged to decrease the preferential rate.

"We don't have any intention of doing so and won't be able to assess the feasibility of the proposal until we sit down and talk with the Ministry of the Civil Service and the Ministry of Finance," Lee said, adding that the two ministries concerned are indeed evaluating the concept.

Seeking to make teaching, soldiering and the civil service more fiscally appealing, in 1983 the KMT government started to offer the three groups an 18 percent preferential interest rate on savings.

The preferential rates were rescinded for new teachers, soldiers and civil servants in 1995, bowing to opposition from other sectors of the economy, but the benefit remained for those hired before 1995.

Now, seeking financial resources to extend a senior stipend to low-income and handicapped citizens aged 65 and older, the TSU proposed a bill on Aug. 30 that calls for halving the preferential interest rate enjoyed by the approximately 340,000 soldiers, schoolteachers and government employees who still receive the benefit.

Under existing rules, the three groups are not qualified to collect the monthly senior stipend allowance of NT$3,000, as they are already receiving a form of government subsidy.

If the proposal becomes law, it is estimated that it will save the government NT$45 billion annually.

Meanwhile, teachers will have another reason to be dissapointed with the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration this year, after it was announced that another of his campaign promises is to be broken.

"I'm afraid teachers will have to work on the Teacher's Day this year as the Cabinet has not yet approved designating Sept. 28 a national holiday," Lee said, adding that the Ministry of the Interior has completed the draft bill pending the Cabinet's approval.