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Aboriginal funds under scrutiny

The government has for years allocated too little of its budget to projects that concern Aborigines, Auditor-General Lin Ching-lung (林慶隆) said yesterday.

Lin made the remarks in response to a question by Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) of the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union during a question-and-answer session at the legislature.

“It is the Executive Yuan that draws up the government budget plan, but I will take up this long-neglected problem with Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄),” the head of the Ministry of Audit said.

The ministry falls under the Control Yuan rather than the Executive Yuan and is responsible for auditing the government’s budget and spending.

Lin was asked to present the audit report on the central government’s spending last year.

Chin asked about the budget for road repairs in largely Aboriginal areas where there is serious damage to bridges and roads whenever there a typhoon sweeps through.

“This year, for example, the government budgeted NT$80 billion (US$2.5 billion) for fixing roads countrywide, but only NT$370 million of it was for Aboriginal areas, where 302 roads totaling 1,000km in length are in dire need of repair,” Chin said.

“We Aboriginal people pay taxes like everyone else. Why can’t we have a safe road home?” she asked.

Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) asked the ministry to monitor subsidiary investments of state-owned enterprises that lose hundreds of billions of NT dollars a year.

“The Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation is in the red for the eighth consecutive year, with total losses at NT$10.8 billion. The Agricultural Bank of Taiwan lost NT$20 billion through purchases of structured notes. China American Petrochemical Co lost NT$3 billion in two years,” Luo said.

Lin said the ministry would look into the subsidiaries and suggest that state-run firms suspend their investments if they do not see adequate improvement.

Democratic Progressive Party legislators Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) and Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said Lin’s responsibility was not only to audit public spending but also to understand how the government draws up its budget and to audit how government agencies spend the money.

“Auditors should point out irregularities involving the government’s handling of its budget immediately and refer the officials involved to the Control Yuan for punishment — [they should] not just list problems on the audit report after the fiscal year“ has ended, Kuan said.

The trio asked Lin to comment on whether the government should withdraw its 2009 budget proposal from the legislature to make changes in light of a lower GDP growth forecast and a draft amendment that would cut into tax revenues.

The Cabinet has proposed halving the securities transaction tax from 0.3 percent to 0.15 percent.

Lin declined to give an opinion on the matter, but said that sending the budget proposal back to the Executive Yuan for revision fell within the authority of the legislature.
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