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.”
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