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 inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to