A draft amendment for the Accounting Act (會計法) proposed by the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) and a much-criticized draft amendment for the Civil Servant and Teacher Insurance Act (公務人員保險法) are still in limbo, with one month left until the end of the seventh legislative session.
The draft amendment for the Civil Servant and Teacher Insurance Act, which passed its first reading last week, stipulates that government contributions to annual civil insurance funds would be raised from 0.65 percent to 1.3 percent.
If the amendment passes its third reading and becomes law, it is estimated that the national treasury would face an additional burden of NT$1.5 trillion (US$49 billion) over the next 22 years, earning the proposal the nickname the “money-pit” act.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsiao Ching-tien (蕭景田) said that if annual farmers’ subsidies were increased by NT$1,000 per month, as proposed by some legislators, it would cost the national treasury NT$8 billion a year, a sum that has already met opposition from the Ministry of Finance, which said it would be a “heavy burden to carry.”
The spending on farmers’ subsidies would be far lower than the losses the national treasury would incur by increasing the civil insurance annual fund, Hsiao said, adding that if the government had the money to increase civil insurance annual funds while claiming it did not have enough money to take care of aging farmers, then the government was obviously lying.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said the civil insurance annual fund was too controversial and needed to be further discussed by legislators across party lines.
State-owned businesses need to consider social justice and the government’s financial capabilities, he said.
To increase civil insurance annual funding while claiming not to have the money to support farmers shows that “this administration is only taking care of some particular individuals,” he said.
Meanwhile, the draft amendment for the Accounting Act, which recently made it to its second reading, proposes expanding the decriminalization of the use of special allowance funds to include people’s representatives, as well as village and borough wardens, earning the draft act criticism from Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) chief executive Chang Hung-lin (張宏林), who called it “the biggest decriminalizing act in history.”
Chang said the draft act was the result of interparty negotiation and though the KMT should take responsibility as the party in power, the DPP’s silence on the issue was also suspicious.
If the draft act is passed into law, the CCW would launch a campaign and publicly name the legislators who voted for its passing or the legislators who participated in the inter-party negotiations.
The draft act shows the lack of transparency in the legislative process, Chang said, urging the legislative committees to publicize their meetings online.
Chang said interparty negotiations should also be publicized and made transparent to the public.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff writer
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