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Hsieh will break promise: Examination Yuan officials

Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) is about to break his pre-election promise to bring into effect the new pension rule for teachers, civil servants and military personnel on Friday, Examination Yuan officials said yesterday.

"The election is over so I guess we should all sit down and spend more time to work out more details about this new rule," said Hung Teh-hsuan (洪德旋), a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Examination Yuan member.

Hung said that the new pension rule is not well-organized and needs to be fixed. The premier did not give enough time for Examination Yuan members as well as related Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of National Defense (MND) officials to discuss and work out the details before he decided to announce on Nov. 16 that the new rule will become effective on Dec. 16.

"There are more details we need to figure out before we can implement the new rule. For instance, how many people are enjoying unreasonable pension programs? What is the mechanism we can rely on to carry out the new rule?" Hung said.

"We don't even have a law to rely on. This means that we cannot enforce it if anybody rebuts, refuses or rejects [the new rule]," he said.

Hung said that he understood the issue was a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) political ploy ahead of the election.

"But, the election is over and the DPP did not gain any advantage out of this, and now control only six counties. What's the rush? Why don't we take time working on details in advance?" Hung said.

Hung made his remarks during a meeting at the Examination Yuan yesterday. The meeting was to discuss details of the new pension rule as well as confirmation from the MOE and MND.

However, Examination Yuan Vice President Wu Rong-ming (吳容明) said that no conclusion was reached during the meeting yesterday, which was another hint that the premier may have to break his own promise as the new rule may not come into effect on time.

In response to Hung's complaint that there is no law to rely on when carrying out the new pension rule, the Ministry of Civil Service proposed an amendment of the Civil Servant Retirement Law (公務人員退休法). Discussion was still ongoing as of press time yesterday.
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