About three out of four — 74.7 percent — respondents in a public opinion poll released yesterday said they were not satisfied with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) performance, a record high disapproval rating for Ma since he took office in May 2008, Taiwan Indicator Survey Research said yesterday.
Ma’s approval rating remained at 12.3 percent, the poll found.
The survey also covered several public policies or issues that have become controversial, including the new freeway electronic toll collection system.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said the government had committed a “serious mistake” in its policymaking.
Among those respondents, 42.5 percent supported termination of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ contract with Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co because of the problems with the eTag, with 26.1 percent supporting a one-month period to allow the system to be fine-tuned and 19.9 percent backing harsh penalties against company.
The poll found that the majority — 71.2 percent— of respondents supported the registration of actual housing prices, but opinions varied on who should be held accountable for providing the information to the government — the buyers, sellers or land administration agents.
When asked who should be responsible for providing information about property sales, 47.5 percent of respondents said both sellers and buyers should be responsible, 21.1 percent said land administration agents, 8 percent said buyers and 6.8 percent said sellers.
Almost half of the respondents (49.2 percent) agreed with the Legislative Yuan’s amendment of the Land Administration Agent Act (地政士法), saying that agents should be given time to correct unintentional mistakes.
Of those respondents, 36.2 percent supported an immediate reprimand for the agents and 14.7 percent said they had no opinion.
The poll was conducted between Wednesday and Thursday last week.
It collected 1,002 valid samples and had a margin of errors of 3.1 percentage points.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
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