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Budget bills still stuck in limbo

The special legislative session ends today, but as of yesterday the government had still failed to gain opposition legislators' support for four budget bills.

Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (朱立倫), a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), visited legislative caucuses yesterday calling on legislators to pass a NT$14 billion (US$429.4 million) budget bill, part of a six-year project to improve the Shihmen Reservoir and its catchment area.

The reservoir has suffered from turbidity problems that periodically leave millions of residents in Taoyuan County without water.

Although Chu got positive responses from the KMT and People First Party (PFP) caucuses, they had not signed a cross-party negotiation agreement in support of the passage of the bill as of last night.

"We will support the bill, but we demand that the government fully monitor the quality of construction," PFP caucus whip Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said.

Other bills waiting for the signatures of the KMT and PFP caucuses were an NT$30.9 million special budget bill -- the first stage of an eight-year flood-fighting plan, a NT$100.7 billion special budget bill for expanding public infrastructure this year and a NT$3.5 trillion budget bill for state-owned enterprises, also for this year.

In accordance with the legislature's regulations, bills endorsed by all legislative caucuses can be sent to the legislative floor for second and third review.

Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the budget bills, which concern people's livelihoods and economic development, were not the priority of the pan-blue camp's legislators.

"The reason the budget bills have been on hold is not due to opposition from pan-blue legislators. Rather, they want to pass other contentious bills first," Ker said.

One of those bills is an amendment to the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例), by which pan-blue legislators want to eliminate the government's authority to permit Chinese to travel to Kinmen and Matsu, he said.

Legislators did reach consensus yesterday on an amendment to the Statute Governing Preferential Treatment for Retired Presidents and Vice Presidents (卸任總統副總統禮遇條例), which will significantly reduce benefits for retired leaders.

Currently, retired presidents and vice presidents are entitled to lifetime preferential treatment after they retire, but legislators agreed to amend this and make the preferential treatment period match the time spent in office.

Meanwhile, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said the GDP would shrink, economic growth would slow and joblessness would rise if the legislature failed to approve as many budget-related proposals as possible within the final two days of the extraordinary legislative session.

"Without the budgets, our contractors will ask for compensation and construction will be delayed," Su said. "It is my rough calculation that GDP will drop by approximately NT$20 billion, economic growth will shrink by 0.15 percent and the jobless rate will rise by about 0.1 percent."

Su said the relationship between political parties should be characterized by competition instead of battles.

He said that the construction of the MRT extension line to CKS International Airport had already been delayed because the legislature has not approved the budget for continuing the construction.

Contractors have begun to ask for compensation, he added.

"Total compensation like this for all the delayed construction projects nationwide is approximately NT$100.7 billion," Su said.

Su said a maintenance project for the Shihmen Dam had also been delayed because its budget was stalled in the legislature.

"For this maintenance work, if we have to interrupt the project because its budget is delayed by the legislature, at least 10,000 workers will lose their jobs," Su said while addressing a Cabinet seminar yesterday.
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