Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) slammed Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday, accusing them of ridiculous behavior and laziness.
“They simply ignore their responsibilities as lawmakers and that is why the legislature wastes money and does nothing,” Lai told a morning press conference.
Lai said that the DPP caucus will issue an official complaint letter to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) requesting he do something about his party’s lawmakers.
Lai said the legislature had nothing to review during its regular floor meetings for the fourth time this session.
He also complained that many KMT lawmakers did not recognize their own proposals during meetings or simply skipped meetings because of other commitments.
“Many of them say ‘we will see what we can do after the presidential inauguration,’” Lai said. “This is the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard.”
DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) complained about Economics Committee convener KMT Legislator Wong Chung-chun’s (翁重鈞) decision to cancel Monday’s committee meeting.
She said that Wong decided to dismiss the meeting around 11:30am, even though several lawmakers were waiting to speak.
“He did it because he needed to run an errand for his business. Isn’t this ridiculous?” Lin said.
Acting secretary-general of the KMT caucus Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said the DPP criticism was unjustified.
Hsieh said the KMT had worked hard to complete reviews of the bills scheduled for last Friday and yesterday during last Friday’s plenary session.
“We would have suggested to the speaker that extra committee meetings be held today [yesterday] if we had known that we would complete all of the reviews last Friday,” Hsieh said.
In related developments, the Procedure Committee has scheduled a proposed amendment to the Referendum Law (公民投票法) for review during the plenary sessions on Friday and next Tuesday.
The proposal would abolish the Cabinet’s Referendum Review Committee and lower the signature thresholds for referendum drives.
The scheduled agenda for Friday and next Tuesday also includes an amendment to the Act Governing Relations between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) that would lift the ban on financial institutions’ investment in China and allow the exchange of the yuan in Taiwan.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
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