The Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday that the basic monthly salary for service personnel will increase by nearly 11 percent when all-volunteer armed forces are introduced.
Responding to questions at a legislative committee, Chao Ke-ta (趙克達), director of the ministry’s Department of Manpower, said the basic salary would increase from NT$27,915 to NT$30,915.
The system of all-volunteer military forces, which is expected to be introduced in 2015, will increase personnel costs by NT$210 million (US$6.6 million) for every 10,000 servicemen and service women, he said.
Chao also said that the ministry supported the government’s plans to abandon the current exemption from taxes for military personnel, civil servants and teachers.
At a separate setting yesterday, the Ministry of the Interior’s (MOI) Conscription Agency spokesman Tsai Kun-fa (蔡焜發), commenting on the MND’s remarks that mandatory military service would likely terminate in 2015, said that male citizens of conscription age born before 1994 who have not performed their military duty would be transferred to replacement service.
“The current plan is to release male citizens born after 1994 of their duty to serve in the military when they start to recruit volunteer soldiers,” Tsai said.
“But in 2015, there will still be male citizens who were born before 1994 but still have not served, so these people would be transferred to replacement service instead,” he said.
In other news, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) reaffirmed yesterday the government’s goal of making Children’s Day a public holiday starting next year.
Wu said the policy was aimed at highlighting the importance with which the government regards children.
To ensure the April 4 holiday is added to the official calendar next year, the Ministry of the Interior should speed up its efforts to amend the law governing the designation of commemorative days and holidays, Wu said when the ministry delivered a report on the welfare of children and teenagers at a weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LOA IOK-SIN
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