Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and six Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) local government chiefs pressured Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday to support the infrastructure bill now before the legislature.
The legislature's procedure committee is scheduled today to put the special bill for the five-year, NT$500 billion project on the legislature's agenda for Friday.
PHOTO: CNA
A showdown vote would be inevitable if cross-party negotiations ahead of the sitting fail.
The six local government chiefs were Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsin (
Hsieh said the governments chiefs sought to explain the importance of the budget plan to Wang, who is a native of Kaohsiung.
"The reason why we're here today is that we all want to make our constituency a better place," he said. "I hope Speaker Wang and opposition lawmakers support the special bill because many parts of the provisions are local public construction projects designed to boost the regional economy."
It would be unfair and to everyone's disadvantage if opposition lawmakers oppose the bill, Hsieh said.
Su said the five-year plan would serve as an indicator of the rivalry across the Taiwan Strait.
"While Beijing is to hold the Olympic Games in 2008, we have an international exposition planned for the same year," Su said. "It'd be too late to get started if the legislature fails to pass the bill and the budget in time."
Opposition lawmakers have argued that the funding mechanism for the plan is a political gambit aimed at skirting the Budget Law (
While the Cabinet hoped the legislature could pass the budget plan this session, it has drawn up contingency measures to keep the two projects afloat. One is to have local governments either divert financial resources to pay for the projects or borrow money from banks, with the central government sharing the interest payments. The second is to dip into NT$20 billion of central government funds.
In addition to the MRT projects, the Cabinet has said that four of the partially completed public construction projects in the plan might be delayed if the legislature fails to pass the budget before the current session ends next month.
Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Lin Feng-hsi (
Yesterday marked the deadline to register in the DPP primaries for the year-end legislative election. Those running in the county commissioner and mayoral elections are barred from running in the legislative elections.
Although calling the policy "unfair," Lin said he was willing to accept the "harsh challenge."
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