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.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
A 23-year-old Taichung man vowed to drink more water after his heavy consumption of sugary tea landed him in hospital with a kidney infection and sepsis. The man, surnamed Lin (林), used to drink two cups of half-sugar oolong tea while working at a food stall, where he often had to wait a long time before urinating. Lin developed kidney stones and noticed blood in his urine, but ignored the issue after taking medication for three days. A month later, he went to the emergency room after experiencing a recurring fever and was diagnosed with a kidney infection that led to sepsis, landing