Ministry exaggerating its projections: lawmakers

Lawmakers of all stripes yesterday lined up to condemn the Ministry of Economic Affairs for exaggerating its projected revenue for next year.

They said the ministry is overoptimistic in expecting to generate more than 50 percent of its 2003 revenue from selling shares of state-run enterprises.

"The ministry should stop deceiving the people, as it has failed to collect targeted income in recent years," DPP lawmaker Chiu Chui-chen (邱垂貞) said during a meeting of the legislature's Economics and Energy Committee yesterday.

Chiu said that the ministry boasted it could generate NT$52.8 billion and NT$63.3 billion for 1999 and 2000 respectively by selling shares of government-owned bus-inesses. As the targets were not realized, Chiu suggested the government be more down-to-earth when planning its future budget.

PFP Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) shared the dissatisfaction and panned the effort to privatize state-run enterprises as a debacle.

He said that since 1990, when the government started to privatize state-run enterprises, not a single case has escaped allegations of unfair trade or other financial fraud.

Chiu Yi said he does not understand why privatizing national enterprises, while theoretically practical and feasible, has been so difficult.

He proposed crossing out the NT$1.9 million from the ministry's 2003 income that the Commission of National Corporations expects to raise by selling shares in Chinese Petroleum Corp.

Going a step further, KMT lawmaker Li Ya-ching (李雅景) advised the legislative committee take out all revenues to be derived from sales of shares of state-run companies. "In light of past failures, the planned income may prove to be untenable anyway," he said.

But Vice Economics Minister Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) said he is confident the situation will improve next year now that rules governing oil companies have been significantly relaxed.