A group of DPP lawmakers yesterday slammed the government for wasting tax dollars on civic groups where retired officials draw generous salaries in addition to their retirement benefits.
The legislators vowed to make those organizations the target of reform in order to ensure that public resources are equitably distributed among the people.
"I find it unfair for many retired government officials to enjoy double incomes when many ordinary people cannot even land a job," DPP Legislator Tang Huo-shen (
He produced official documents showing that assorted Cabinet departments spend a total of NT$104 billion a year financing 133 civic organizations, 35 of which are fully sponsored by government funds. Another 99 get 50 percent of their annual bud-gets from tax revenues.
Tang questioned the rationale for such organizations, saying many of them serve no purpose other than to allow retired officials to get extra income.
Colleague Chien Chao-tong (簡肇棟) noted that former finance minister Hsu Chia-tung (許嘉棟), for instance, enjoys a monthly salary of more than NT$220,000 as head of a private trade association while collecting nearly NT$50,000 a month in retirement benefits.
Kao Chun-hui (
The data showed the Council for Cultural Affairs well ahead of other agencies in sponsoring 29 civic organizations. The Ministry of Economic Affairs finances 25 associations, while the Council of Agriculture finances 13.
Lawmaker Lin Yu-sheng (林育生) demanded that the government revamp its personnel policy when staffing those organizations. Lin said he and others would work to abolish those organizations because they have not been effective in serving the public.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS