In a bid to better manage national assets, the Executive Yuan is planning to offer subsidies to civil servants to move out of their state-sponsored housing.
"The Central Personnel Administration is studying ways to subsidize those who moved into public civil servant housings before 1983, especially those located in downtown areas where real estate prices are higher," said Cabinet Spokesman Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢).
If the measure is approved by the Executive Yuan, occupants will be asked to move out of the housing six months after the decree takes effect.
According to an official at the committee for civil-servant housing and welfare affairs under the Central Personnel Administration who requested not to be named, the administration held the first of a series of ministerial meetings to discuss the matter yesterday morning.
"We're thinking of offering a flat stipend of NT$1.5 million to those civil servants who moved into civil-servant housing before 1983 and whose official ranking is between one to five (on the one-to-14 scale), NT$1.8 million to official rankings of between six to nine and NT$2.2 million to 10 to 14," he said.
After the properties are vacated, the official said, the National Property Bureau under the Ministry of Finance will start to auction it off to private concerns.
The money obtained will then go to a fund, totaling about NT$80 billion, to be used as loans to civil servants moving out of the civil-servant housing and are interested in purchasing housing of their own.
According to the official, there are about 6,000 families who had moved in to public civil servant housing before 1983. It is estimated that it may cost the government over NT$20 billion to take care of the matter.
Those who moved into public civil servant housing after 1983 will not be covered by the subsidy program because an administrative order promulgated on May 1, 1983 stipulates that civil servants wishing to reside in civil servant housings are required to sign a lease contract with the government before moving in. The contract also needs to be certified by the court.
Although there is no timetable set, the official said that the program will be implemented stage by stage. "We might start with empty houses, especially those located in downtown areas," the official said.
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