A group of aspiring lawmakers yesterday made the case for relocating the legislature to Greater Taichung.
Eight Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative nominees have made moving the legislature part of their election platform. They say the move would “equalize” regional disparities and shift the center of power away from the capital.
“It’s not unusual for governments to locate branches of government in different cities,” said Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), a former Cabinet minister who is running for election in Greater Taichung. “Locating the legislature in central Taiwan ... would not only be convenient, but would rapidly develop the local economy.”
“We could locate it near the Taichung high-speed rail (HSR) station and lawmakers would only need to hop on the train for a legislative session,” he told a press conference on Wednesday at the bullet train station in Greater Taichung’s Wuri District (烏日).
Debate on moving government functions away from Taipei has come up numerous times in the past. Previously, critics of the -proposal have pointed to prohibitively high costs and the difficulty of moving thousands of government workers as reasons to dismiss the idea.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) attempted to decentralize agencies from Taipei when he moved the Fisheries Agency and the Sports Affairs Council to Greater Kaohsiung (then Kaohsiung City) in 2007, although the latter has since moved back.
Employees at the two agencies were given a NT$20,000 monthly stipend to cover relocation expenses during the period.
Critics are concerned that heavy costs would be incurred on a larger scale if more prominent government functions were moved elsewhere.
“Moving the capital or just the legislature will tax resources and hurt the country’s finances. It does nothing for our national competitiveness,” Taipei-based Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) said. “The proposal is a move to appeal to voters.”
However, the DPP nominees, led by Lin, said their idea should be reassessed in light of the nuclear crisis in Japan following a powerful earthquake on March.
Chien Chao-tong (簡肇棟), the only current DPP legislator of the group, said decentralization would mean more room for evacuation in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.
The DPP plan involves -cen-tralizing several government functions, including the legislature, on vacant land in Wuri, near the Taichung HSR station, to create an area that would be known as “parliament hill.”
“Moving parts of the capital to Greater Taichung can help mitigate the [aftereffects] if a -Fukushima-like disaster were to occur at nuclear power plants one and two,” he said.
Proposals to move the capital to Greater Taichung are almost -unanimously supported by politicians from the city, including Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), although progress on the issue has failed to gain traction nationally.
DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has expressed support for the plan, saying it would help relieve congestion.
Two Greater Taichung KMT lawmakers recently asked the Executive Yuan to consider moving all the agencies at once, an attempt that was swiftly denied.
An Executive Yuan letter on July 15 said moving the capital would be complicated “and have far-reaching consequences.” Any move would mean the government would have to “redraw national development ideas, national defense mobilization strategies and economic development plans.”
As a result, “the government currently does not have any related proposal,” the Executive Yuan said.
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