A dozen social welfare groups staged a demonstration in Taipei yesterday, saying the government owed them millions of NT dollars, before filing a complaint with the Control Yuan.
“The government has outsourced social welfare programs or promised financial aid to social welfare groups across the country. However, the government has either delayed payments or simply owes the money,” League of Social Welfare Organizations in Taiwan secretary-general Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋) told those demonstrating outside the Control Yuan.
Wang went on to say that in most cases, social welfare groups would apply for financial aid from the central government through local governments, then receive the money from the local governments after the central government allocated the requested money.
“However, instead of giving the money to the social welfare groups that requested it, local governments often use the money for their own construction projects,” Wang said.
“As far as I know, the Taichung County Government already owes more than NT$10 million [US$318,000] to social welfare groups — some payments have been delayed for two to three years already,” said Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲), secretary-general of the Alliance for Handicapped People.
Women’s Rescue Foundation executive director Cynthia Kao (高小晴) complained about the outsourcing of welfare projects.
“Central or local governments quite often delay payments to social welfare groups for outsourced projects, and sometimes they even try to bargain,” Kao said.
Kao said that it is normal for government officials to ask for a discount of around 10 percent from the price already agreed upon before signing the contract.
“Of course the government is able to keep promising more social welfare, because it’s often the social workers from social welfare groups that have to put their own money into executing the government’s projects,” said Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華), secretary-general of the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare.
After a brief press conference and demonstration, the groups’ representatives walked into the Control Yuan to submit their complaints and push for an investigation.
Unexpectedly walking into Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien right after entering the building, the groups’ request was accepted and an investigation was promised.
NATURE TAKES ITS COURSE: The agency’s head said he felt a sense of loss watching red-banded snakes eat the babies, as they had decided on non-intervention The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday released a documentary on a hundred-pace viper that had incubated 16 eggs, all of which hatched, but only a baby viper escaped after they were attacked by red-banded snakes. The agency’s Taichung branch last year launched the viper reproduction monitoring project soon after forest rangers Lin Chun-yu (林俊佑) and Chou Chia-cheng (周家成) spotted a pregnant hundred-pace viper in a grass-covered burrow near a parking lot in Tbulan Village (松鶴部落). The Atayal village, in Taichung’s Heping District (和平), is headed by Ecyang Yapu, who was positive about the project and assisted in access control and power
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said that it had deployed vessels to “monitor” Chinese ships operating in waters off the east coast. The CGA said it dispatched vessels in response to a China Coast Guard announcement that it had carried out another “routine law-enforcement patrol” in waters off the east coast. “The CGA firmly rejects China’s cognitive warfare campaign of ‘law enforcement in name, jurisdictional expansion in practice,’” it said on X. As of 11am yesterday, two China Coast Guard ships were “loitering and drifting” about 105 nautical miles (195km) and 74 nautical miles east of Green Island (綠島) respectively, it said. It
A sharp rise in compensation to be paid by air force officers who leave before completing their required service could indicate an increase in pilots leaving the military early, an analyst said on Friday, warning that the trend could worsen a shortage of experienced personnel. Chieh Chung (揭仲), a researcher at the Association for Strategic Foresight, issued the warning even though the number of volunteer military personnel is expected to increase next year. The planned headcount for volunteer military personnel, covering officers, noncommissioned officers (NCO) and enlisted soldiers, is 158,223 for next year, up 4,258 from 153,965 this year, Chieh said. The increase
Potential improvements to munitions used by China’s long-range rocket-artillery units could extend their range to cover the entire Miyako Strait, which might give the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) the ability to secure the strategic waterway, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said in a report. The PLA’s long-range rocket-artillery units deployed along the Taiwan Strait are concentrated along the coast of Fujian Province, including Changle, Pingtan and Shishi, the quarterly report on China said. The artillery brigades of the PLA’s 71st, 72nd and 73rd group armies have been deployed, with preparations for potential battlefield operations under way since August 2022, the report
RSS