Electricity rates are to be cut by 9.56 percent on Friday as scheduled, Vice Premier Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said yesterday in response to appeals by an aide to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to delay the move.
The stance of the Executive Yuan is to abide by the law, and it will follow the electricity rate formula passed by the legislature last year, Duh said.
“Unless the legislature reviews the issue or revises formula, the Executive Yuan will follow the decision reached by the Rate Screening Committee on March 15,” he said.
The possibility of delaying the cut was raised after Chang Ching-sen (張景森), executive director of Tsai’s policy office, met with Duh on Friday.
At the meeting, he asked the ministry to put the rate reduction on hold until Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government takes office on May 20, so as to not affect the energy and environmental policies of the new government.
In a post on his Facebook page on Sunday, Chang said that Taiwan relies on imports for its energy needs, and electricity rates should be high, but they are not because the nation uses coal and nuclear plants to generate its electricity.
He said that if the ministry does not postpone the rate and global oil prices start to rise in the second half of the year, electricity rates will certainly rise, which he said would be inflationary.
“Power rate cuts do not lead to drops in commodity prices, but if the electricity rate rises, the prices of goods will rise along with it,” Chang said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Teh-fu (林德福) said he was surprised by the DPP’s position.
He said the DPP in January last year insisted that state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) come up with a formula to adjust electricity rates systematically and adjust electricity prices every year on April 1 and Oct. 1.
That was why Taipower announced the rate cut, which is to save the more than 13 million power customers in Taiwan a total of NT$56.2 billion (US$1.72 billion) per year, Lin said.
Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) earlier yesterday said that the rate cut would take effect on Friday if the legislature does not pass a new resolution on the issue.
The DPP seemed to give mixed signals on its position.
DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said the party respected the decision that is to be implemented by the executive branch based on the legislature’s resolution last year.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) did not seem to oppose preserving the scheduled rate cut either, saying that any adjustment of electricity rates should consider energy policy and conservation.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS