Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) Minister Chu Chin-peng (朱景鵬) has offered to resign amid speculation that he was frustrated over slow progress on legislative review of bills regarding government restructuring.
Chu downplayed the speculation in a telephone interview, saying he has long planned to return to academia in January next year.
Chu said he had expressed his intention to resign to Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) earlier this year when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) formed the Cabinet ahead of his May 20 inauguration for a second term, but was told to stay on until the end of this year.
“I decided to leave earlier to give my successor more time to resolve remaining issues concerning government restructuring in the next legislative session,” Chu said.
Chu said he submitted his resignation letter to Chen after the legislative session ended on Friday. It has not been approved yet.
Several controversial issues left the first session of the eighth legislature mired in confrontation so that during the four-month-long session, lawmakers completed reviews of only 11 pieces of legislation, two audits of final accounts, an internal legislative regulation and the credentials of three Examination Yuan members.
Under the government’s plan to streamline the Executive Yuan from 37 agencies to 29 between January this year and Dec. 31, 2014, bills governing the structure of 15 agencies were approved by the seventh legislature.
The commission initially wanted to push through the remaining 85 amendments governing structures of 14 other agencies in the recent session, but the bills were held up by other issues.
Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Deputy Minister Sung Yu-hsieh (宋餘俠) said the commission wanted the remaining bills to pass by the end of this year to allow enough time to prepare the 14 new agencies.
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