The Executive Yuan yesterday said it was disappointed over the cuts the legislature made to the annual budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Officials were also upset by the legislature's failure to pass the Organic Law of the Executive Yuan (
PHOTO: WANG YI-SONG, TAIPEI TIMES
Cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai (
Chen noted that the cut was the biggest in the past three years, and that the reduction in forecast income that would result from the postponement of the sale of state-owned businesses would make it more difficult to implement needed reforms.
Chen also said that the reduction in the budget for the Ministry of Economic Affairs' technology project program would interfere with national development.
"Besides, the efficiency bonuses for 200,000 civil servants have been cut, and this will damage their morale and administrative efficiency. Further, the 30 percent cut in the outsourcing fee for all government agencies will also seriously affect administrative operations," Chen said.
Chen said that cuts to the Grand Justices' "professional reimbursement fund" was "apparent political revenge" and "an attempt to interfere with judicial independence via political force." Chen said the cut violated the Constitution, which stipulates that judges' salaries can not be cut without the passage of a statute requiring the cuts.
In response to cuts in the "special expense funds" for Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (
Chairman of the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Yeh Chun-jung (葉俊榮) showed regret over the failed passage of the organic law of the Executive Yuan.
"The governing and opposition camps have laid the tracks of government restructuring, and are waiting for the restructuring train to arrive at the platform. But it what they did not expect was that when the restructuring train was just about to arrive, it stopped. It feels just like being doused in a sudden downpour of cold rain," Yeh said.
Yeh said that the government would work hard again to push through the bill in the next legislature.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching