A legislative committee yesterday passed the preliminary review of one article of a bill regulating the number of civil servants amid criticism from legislators across party lines of the ceiling proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Cabinet.
The Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, dominated by the KMT, ignored Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators’ requests to postpone the article-by-article review of the Act Governing the Total Number of Civil Servants Employed by Central Government Agencies (中央政府機關總員額法), proposed separately by the Executive Yuan and the Examination Yuan, DPP legislators and KMT legislators.
DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said the committee should wait until the new head of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Chu Chin-peng (朱景鵬), delivers a special report on government restructuring before beginning reviews of related bills.
Ker said the position of his caucus on the matter was clear — it supports passing a bill to reorganize the government during this legislative session, but the committee must first approve the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法) and the Organic Standard Act of Central Government Agencies (中央行政機關組織基準法) before moving on to review the Act Governing the Total Number of Civil Servants Employed by Central Government Agencies.
Describing the first two bills as a person’s body and the Act Governing the Total Number of Civil Servants Employed by Central Government Agencies as the muscle, Ker said the committee must form the structure of the body before adding the muscle.
“We cannot pass a bill simply because President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) says so and has set a deadline,” he said.
KMT Legislator Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) criticized the Executive Yuan for proposing to streamline the central government, but increase the number of civil servants.
Under the Executive Yuan’s proposal, the cap on the number of civil servants employed by central government would be set at 173,000, about 9,000 more than the current number.
Calling the proposed number “impractical,” Wu said the public would not accept the committee approving the bill proposed by the executive branch.
KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said if the number of ministries was being downsized from 38 to 29, it would make sense to cut the number of civil servants by about 25,000.
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