A recent report by the legislature’s Budget Center showed that since 1982, civil servants whose negligence had resulted in the government paying out compensation had only repaid NT$56 million (US$2 million) — or 7.53 percent of the total amount issued — to the treasury.
The center said the low percentage of repayment highlighted the failure of administrative agencies to follow-up and collect payments to reduce losses to the national treasury.
The State Compensation Act (國家賠償法) stipulates that each administrative agency has the right to demand payment from civil employees whose mistakes have resulted in the government issuing compensation to victims.
NEGLIGENCE
Often, however, the agencies were less than willing to demand payment from these employees because it would be an admission of administrative negligence, the center said.
In response to the report, Deputy Minister of Justice Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) said since the Executive Yuan has authorized the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to aid in coordinating the budget for national compensation for each administrative agency, the ministry would increase its efforts to collect payments from these civil servants.
The center suggested in the report that the current system of having the MOJ coordinate national compensation budgeting be changed.
As the administrative agencies are not involved in the process of requesting budget for national compensation, they may not feel responsible for these outlays, thus becoming a burden on the national treasury, it said.
DIFFICULTIES
However, the report quoted the ministry as saying there might be technical difficulties in having each agency coordinate its own national compensation budgeting, with some agencies receiving too little and others receiving too much.
The center acknowledged these difficulties as losses from compensation are usually focused on a few agencies.
Between 2005 and last year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the MOJ accounted for 85.98 percent of the total number of compensation cases, the center said, with the first two accounting for the highest number of payments.
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