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Taipei City Council passes annual budget, eventually

After 23 hours of deliberations, the Taipei City Council yesterday morning passed the NT$134.8 billion city budget for this year, trimming nearly NT$3.2 billion from the proposed budget.

One of the main sticking points during the lengthy discussions was how to handle the sale of shares in TaipeiBank, which has been merged with Fubon Financial Holding Co.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors opposed including the revenue generated by the sale of the city's remaining shares of TaipeiBank in the city's anticipated revenue.

But a coalition of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), People First Party (PFP) and New Party councilors succeeded in passing the proposal to release the shares, thereby filling a large hole in the city's finances.

The city government can now sell TaipeiBank stocks at no lower than NT$33 each, earning the city government NT$5.47 billion.

Concerns over the way the sale of TaipeiBank was being handled were raised in October, when the bank's former president, Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井), accused Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of selling the bank too cheaply to Fubon.

Ma, who said he had gone to Fubon's private club five times, was suspected by DPP city councilors of having arrived at a covert agreement with Fubon.

Another contentious issue in the budget was the shortfall in payments to the national health insurance fund over the past four years.

The city owes the fund more than NT$10 billion, and the government had proposed allocating NT$3 billion toward paying off this debt. But the budget passed by the city councilors included only NT$20 million, which covers only the interest on the debt.

The central government has threatened to force the city government to pay up, but the Taipei City Government insists that a decision by the Council of Grand Justices protects it from any central government moves.
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