The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said it is planning to set up a navigation bureau in preparation for taking over operation of the country’s 34 lighthouses.
Lighthouses have until now been under the management of the Ministry of Finance’s Directorate General of Customs for historical reasons.
After losing the Opium War to Britain in 1842, the Qing Dynasty was forced to open five ports to international trade.
The Qing bureaucracy did not have the expertise to build and manage lighthouses so it tasked its British-run customs office with the construction, maintenance and administration of the infrastructure.
In the first year following the end of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan after World War II, Taiwan’s lighthouses were administered by the transport department, but then they were turned over to the customs office the following year by the Republic of China government.
In China, meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party transfered management of lighthouses to the Ministry of Communications after it came to power.
In line with a government restructuring plan to be put into effect in 2011, a Ministry of Transportation and Communications official said the ministry plans to create a navigation bureau to take charge of harbor and lighthouse administration, while transforming the four existing harbor bureaus into state-run companies responsible for attracting foreign shippers to make port calls or use harbor facilities.
At present, the Directorate General of Customs’ Maritime Affairs Department is responsible for lighthouse management and has a staff of about 200 people to administer the 34 lighthouses and other facilities, along with a vessel to transport supplies to the more remote lighthouses.
If the MOTC takes over control, the official said, it would set up a lighthouse center under a navigation bureau to handle the lighthouses.
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