Local government chiefs yesterday withdrew a threat to stage more anti-government demonstrations, at least for the time being, after Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) promised the central government would help them to deal with their financial difficulties.
"We will postpone our plans and wait to see what has been achieved by the end of December," said Lin Hong-chi (林鴻池), the mayor of Panchiao.
Lin made the comment after a meeting with Yu and other government officials. Lin was a key organizer of a protest by 200 township chiefs and city mayors outside the Executive Yuan at the end of last month.
"The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics will assist villages, townships and cities in resolving their financial difficulties, as the Lunar New Year is approaching," Yu told reporters yesterday.
He did not elaborate, but was widely understood to be saying that the government would draw on emergency funds to make up the local governments' shortfall.
Yesterday's meeting involved the interior and finance ministries, 12 representatives of local governments and officials from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
The local government representatives demanded the central government help pay the salaries of their employees and hold a national conference to discuss their long-standing financial difficulties.
Of 134 villages, townships, and cities that reported their financial situations yesterday, the representatives said 22 won't be able to pay their employees next month and 33 have taken out loans to meet next month's salaries.
Under the Law Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法), villages, townships and cities receive most of their funding from city and county governments, which share in a 39 percent portion of the central government's Tax Redistribution Fund (統籌分配款).
But the size of those handouts is declining as tax revenues decrease and the local government heads are angry. They say they have received little in the way of subsidies from their city and county governments.
"The central government just ignores our requests and shirks its responsibilities to the city and county governments. At least 98 heads of villages, townships and cities will take to the streets of Taipei, if the central government keeps playing games like this," Lin warned.
Vice Minister of Finance Gordon Chen (陳樹) promised to investigate whether city and county governments have followed regulations by granting 90 percent of their portions of the Tax Redistribution Fund to villages, townships and cities under their jurisdiction.
Yu said he would discuss the request for a finance conference with Premier Yu Shyi-kun.
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