Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) yesterday accused the Council of Agriculture (COA) of asking gangsters to threaten him over a proposed freeze of the council’s budget requests.
Legislators have proposed freezing a NT$2 billion (US$60 million) COA annual budget request intended for subsidies to farmers’ associations or agricultural groups.
KMT Legislator Hsiao Ching-tien (蕭景田) said he had found that the COA could decide whom to give the grant to without having to invite public bids and that COA officials or retirees served as board members of 35 of the organizations that had received grants in the past.
Hsiao then proposed that the COA be required to establish a complete set of screening processes for the grants and oblige the council to report the screening mechanism to the legislature before the budget request would continue to be reviewed.
The Legislative Yuan is reviewing the government’s fiscal budget requests for next year and is scheduled to complete the review by the end of the year.
Chang lambasted the council, saying it should have spoken to him or other lawmakers who proposed the freeze or arranged for special reports during legislative meetings to help lawmakers better understand the council’s requests, rather than applying pressure on legislators through “friends.”
“The council asked gangsters to threaten to withdraw election support [for me] if [I] didn’t withdraw my proposal,” Chang said.
“The council should do what a government branch has to do and persuade legislators that the budget would be spent on taking care of the public,” Chang said.
Hsiao, who also said he had been pressured, criticized the council’s actions as “inappropriate,” saying the council should communicate with lawmakers through “normal channels.”
In response, the chief of the council’s accounting department, Shih Hsin-pin (施欣蘋), said: “After reading press reports [of the alleged threats] we found that at least some parts of the news did not represent the truth … It is impossible that the COA would [employ gangsters to pressure legislators].”
“The reports may have stemmed from misunderstandings the council had with some legislators during the meeting … As such the council will strive to improve communication with the legislature,” Shih said.
There are two ways the COA may grant money to an organization — by commission or by subsidy funding, Shih said. While evaluation for the former is subject to Article 15 of the Government Procurement Law (政府採購法), which states that to avoid conflicts of interest the commissioned parties should not be the purchasers, their spouse, or close relatives, the council only observes “COA regulations” when it comes to subsidies, Shih said.
Asked about Chang’s accusation that the COA was “refereeing its own soccer game” and allocating subsidy funding to organizations whose chairs are current or retired employees of the council, Shih said: “The council grants subsidies to organizations according to need and usage of funds … Decisions on the grants have nothing to do with whether a current or retired employee heads the organization or not.”
However, “in response to the legislature’s request,” the COA will develop a new evaluation process for reviewing subsidy applications that will take into consideration who heads the applying organizations, Shih said, adding that a report would be ready within two months.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
RSS