The defense committee of the legislature yesterday passed the unclassified portion of Ministry of National Defense's proposed budget for next year, cutting only NT$1.75 billion from the NT$132.5 billion pie.
The classified portion of next year's budget, NT$32.3 billion, will be examined by the committee next week and is also likely to face cuts.
DPP Legislator Chen Chung-hsin (陳忠信), a senior member of the defense committee, said the committee might cut the classified portion of the proposed budget by tens of millions of NT dollars and that the cut is likely to be close to last year's.
Last year, the defense committee cut around NT$2.7 billion from the proposed defense budget for 2002, which includes both unclassified and classified spending.
Yesterday, the defense committee completed its screening of the unclassified portion of the proposed budget for next year. It took only three days of sessions for the committee to complete the screening.
The committee's cut of NT$1.75 billion focused on three catego-ries: armaments, engineering and personnel.
It did not specify which of these areas the ministry must cut.
While some parts of the defense budget for next year were cut, others were recommended for an increase.
The committee requested that the meal allowance for servicemen be increased from NT$77 per person per day to NT$90 per person per day, starting from 2004. The ministry accepted the suggestion.
The increase is expected to cost the ministry an extra NT$1.6 billion a year.
The measure is aimed at improving the living standards of servicemen but might add to the ministry's financial burden.
Asked to comment on the issue, Chen told the media that the committee must take some time to discuss with the ministry how it is to solve its budget problems.
"We have made it clear to the ministry during these few days of budget screening sessions that we are not happy about the fact that its personnel costs have been increasing year by year, despite its efforts to reduce manpower," Chen said.
"The ministry should work out how to solve its increasing personnel costs. It should endeavor at the same time to improve the welfare of servicemen," he said.
"The ministry has yet another costly task to deal with. It is to implement, starting early next year, a professional-soldier system on an experimental basis," he said. "The project will cost a considerable amount of money."
The ministry's personnel expenses for next year account for more than 55 percent of its entire budget.
RSS