The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed budget requests for state-run enterprises for the current fiscal year after spending the whole night struggling with more than 300 proposed resolutions, but left a number of important bills stalled.
Legislators approved a total of NT$2.8 trillion (US$86.4 billion) in revenues and NT$2.7 trillion in expenditures for state-run enterprises after cutting the budget by NT$4.3 billion.
Lawmakers spent 18 hours beginning at 3:30pm on Monday voting on about 400 proposals related to budget requests put forth by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The DPP blocked the plenary session by calling for a revote on every one of the proposals.
Later on Monday night, both parties agreed to drop some of the proposals, bringing the number down to around 300. Nevertheless, legislators did not finish the marathon vote until around 10am yesterday.
DPP caucus whip Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said on the legislative floor that his caucus resorted to the stall tactic in a bid to “punish” the KMT caucus for a procedural controversy involving three bills aimed at allowing local schools to recruit students from China and to recognize Chinese credentials.
The DPP caucus refused to negotiate with the KMT caucus after a joint meeting of the Internal Administration Committee and the Education and Culture Committee last week rejected the DPP lawmakers’ proposal that the committees reconsider a decision to allow the bills to move on to cross-party negotiations — a necessary procedure before a bill is put to a second and third reading.
DPP caucus secretary-general Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) said the procedural controversy had not been resolved and urged the KMT caucus to stop attempting to push through any controversial bills.
The legislature went into recess yesterday at noon, right after legislators approved four Executive Yuan nominees for the National Communications Commission with full KMT support. The DPP lawmakers did not cast any ballots during the vote.
Urgent bills included a geology act that would restrict development in sensitive areas or areas vulnerable to disasters, an amendment to the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法) as well as bills related to land preservation and disaster relief mechanisms, and bills concerning upgrades and mergers for the five special municipalities remained at a standstill as legislators began their summer vacation yesterday afternoon.
While KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) yesterday said his caucus has not decided yet on whether to pursue a provisional session to pass more bills, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said the Executive Yuan would ask the legislature to hold a provisional session to review an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) if the KMT government manages to seal the deal with China by the end of this month.
“We will do our best to [conclude the pact by the end of June.] When it is signed, we will soon refer it to the legislature for approval and request the legislature to set a date for holding an extra session to review the ECFA and other urgent bills,” Wu said.
The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed budget requests for state-run enterprises for the current fiscal year after spending the whole night struggling with more than 300 proposed resolutions, but left a number of important bills stalled.
Legislators approved a total of NT$2.8 trillion (US$86.4 billion) in revenues and NT$2.7 trillion in expenditures for state-run enterprises after cutting the budget by NT$4.3 billion.
Lawmakers spent 18 hours beginning at 3:30pm on Monday voting on about 400 proposals related to budget requests put forth by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The DPP blocked the plenary session by calling for a revote on every one of the proposals.
Later on Monday night, both parties agreed to drop some of the proposals, bringing the number down to around 300. Nevertheless, legislators did not finish the marathon vote until around 10am yesterday.
DPP caucus whip Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said on the legislative floor that his caucus resorted to the stall tactic in a bid to “punish” the KMT caucus for a procedural controversy involving three bills aimed at allowing local schools to recruit students from China and to recognize Chinese credentials.
The DPP caucus refused to negotiate with the KMT caucus after a joint meeting of the Internal Administration Committee and the Education and Culture Committee last week rejected the DPP lawmakers’ proposal that the committees reconsider a decision to allow the bills to move on to cross-party negotiations — a necessary procedure before a bill is put to a second and third reading.
DPP caucus secretary-general Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) said the procedural controversy had not been resolved and urged the KMT caucus to stop attempting to push through any controversial bills.
The legislature went into recess yesterday at noon, right after legislators approved four Executive Yuan nominees for the National Communications Commission with full KMT support. The DPP lawmakers did not cast any ballots during the vote.
Urgent bills included a geology act that would restrict development in sensitive areas or areas vulnerable to disasters, an amendment to the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法) as well as bills related to land preservation and disaster relief mechanisms, and bills concerning upgrades and mergers for the five special municipalities remained at a standstill as legislators began their summer vacation yesterday afternoon.
While KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) yesterday said his caucus has not decided yet on whether to pursue a provisional session to pass more bills, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said the Executive Yuan would ask the legislature to hold a provisional session to review an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) if the KMT government manages to seal the deal with China by the end of this month.
“We will do our best to [conclude the pact by the end of June.] When it is signed, we will soon refer it to the legislature for approval and request the legislature to set a date for holding an extra session to review the ECFA and other urgent bills,” Wu said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching