President-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) plan to restore the appointment of senior advisers and national policy advisers to the president — a system that his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) strongly disapproved of during the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration — has come under fire from the DPP.
Incoming Presidential Office secretary-general Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) visited Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Monday to discuss the plan, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday.
“Ma is considering restoring the appointments in accordance with the Organic Law of the Presidential Office (總統府組織法),” Wang said.
The KMT-dominated legislature last year passed a resolution freezing the fiscal 2008 budget for the president to appoint senior national policy advisers, saying the money could not be freed until the inauguration of a new government on May 20.
Based on the government’s fiscal 2008 budget statement, the budget for senior advisers, national policy advisers and strategic advisers amounted to NT$130 million (US$4.26 million).
“Ma is eligible to use the budget after his inauguration,” Wang said.
The DPP government suspended the annual appointment of senior advisers and national policy advisers in June 2006, a move President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) regarded as a step forward in promoting administrative reform.
Chen’s decision ended the half-century long system established by the former KMT regime and has saved the government about NT$140 million over the past two years.
The organic law states that the president is entitled to appoint up to 120 paid and unpaid senior advisers and national policy advisers, the report said.
“The KMT used to attack Chen for using the appointments of senior advisers and national policy advisers as rewards ... Why has the KMT allowed Ma to restore the system? The KMT keeps saying it wants to boost the economy. Why doesn’t it want to help the public save NT$70 million a year?” DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said.
In response, KMT Legislator Shyu Jong-shyoung (徐中雄) said he was confident that Ma would select senior advisers and national policy advisers who can make a contribution to the country and not consider the positions as rewards or favors for his supporters.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS