Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma said he would like to see the restructuring of the nation's 19 cities and counties and two special municipalities into three regions -- northern, central and southern -- with regional developments centering around Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.
The current two special municipalities are Taipei City and Kaohsiung City, with the Ministry of Interior considering whether to elevate an amalgamated Taichung city and county into the nation's third.
Under Ma's scheme, Taipei City, Taipei County and Keelung City would be merged into one administrative unit.
"In this way, it strengthens the overall competitiveness of each region as well the whole country as opposed to shattering regional development by upgrading every city and county into a special municipality," he said.
Ma also pointed out the disadvantages with upgrading a city or county into a special municipality.
"After upgrading into a special municipality, a city or county is burdened with more financial liabilities. Spending for high-school education, flood prevention and medical health, for example, increases by about NT$40 billion each year," Ma said.
"There aren't just advantages to becoming a special municipality. Other factors should be taken into consideration. For instance, Taipei City has to cover education expenditures of about NT$12 billion per year for students from Taipei County who study in Taipei City," the mayor said.
Ma's statements came in response to DPP Taipei County Commissioner Su Tseng-chang (
Su said that "next year, Taipei City alone will receive 35.2 percent of the central government's tax revenues, much higher than the share allocated to the DPP's other nine cities and counties that receive only 27.8 percent in total."
"It is extremely unfair in terms of population and size of the territory," Su said.
Taipei County Government, which has jurisdiction over 3 million residents, received much less in government funds than the Taipei City Government, which governs about 2.5 million residents.
Reacting to Su's criticism, Ma said he would allow the issue to be solved by the draft revision of the Financial Allocation Law (
"It is the government's responsibility to create more financial sources for local governments, if it is to cut back their tax revenues," Ma said.
Meanwhile, Taipei County and Taichung City continue to vie for special municipality status. During the presidential campaign, President Chen Shui-bian (
Vice President Annette Lu (
She proposed delineating Tai-wan into four sectors -- northern, central, southern and eastern, with the capital of the nation transferred to Kaohsiung. The scheme is similar to the "five-states" system used during Japanese colonial rule.
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