Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千) this week proposed extending the year-end subsidy to more retired civil servants, teachers and military personnel, but the scheme was denounced by opposition legislators as a “voting-buying” attempt for the upcoming election.
Taiwan’s economy has made gradual improvement in the past two years, Sun said on Tuesday.
“People have a good outlook about the economy, and consumer confidence is returning,” he said. “In general, the optimistic view has it that economic growth can increase to 3.41 percent this year.”
He said the consumer price index climbed by 1.75 percent last month, which was the highest in the past 17 months, and rising prices of goods would be a common trend.
“Therefore to protect the basic living conditions for retired civil servants, teachers and military personnel, the year-end subsidy should be adjusted to reflect the rising prices,” Sun said.
The government in 2012 limited recipients of the bonus from 445,000 retired military personnel, civil servants, public-school teachers and employees of state-owned enterprises to about 40,000 retirees, or the families of deceased retirees who receive a monthly pension of less than NT$20,000 and families of retirees who were killed, injured or disabled in wars or on military exercises.
Sun said he would table a motion in the next legislative session to raise the threshold from NT$20,000 to NT$25,000, adding he had already gathered more than 40 signatures as endorsement from fellow KMT legislators.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators criticized the proposal as buying votes from the traditional pan-blue supporters.
“The reform needed on the preferential retirement benefit package for civil servants is not on track yet, and many disputed issues have not been dealt with. Now we are nearing an election and the KMT is looking for excuses to dole out money. This is their way of ‘vote-buying’ through tailor-made policies,” DPP Legislator Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) said.
The government’s generous retirement benefit package for civil servants should be opened up for discussion, but with the KMT’s proposal brought up in such an arbitrary way, there is little legal basis for examining it, Hsu said.
“Sun should explain clearly how the subsidy program is unfair. If the retirement benefits are not enough, then we should amend the laws to address it, but not try to hand out more year-end subsidies, which has no legal basis,” he said. “This is just giving out money to curry favor for election votes with select constituency groups.”
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
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
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai