Civic groups yesterday expressed concern that the government’s Forward-Looking Infrastructure Development Program could degenerate into a pork barrel, as debate over the plan continues.
“The problem is that in the past there have been many examples of projects that started out with good intentions, but ended with tragic results,” National Chengchi University’s Department of Land Economics professor Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮) said at a forum organized by the Economic Democracy Union.
“There is absolutely not enough ‘forward-lookingness’ in the entire program, which amounts to throwing away money,” union spokesman Hsu Po-jen (許博任) said, adding that there is danger that grants would degenerate into pork barrel aimed at securing votes from local constituencies unless civic groups are given a greater role in review.
Citing a “mixed bag” of railway construction projects, he said the proposal had been drafted too hastily and called for the Executive Yuan to require ministries to resubmit project proposals after it drafts a clear definition of “forward-looking.”
National Taiwan University’s Societal Risk and Policy Research Center postdoctoral researcher Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) commended plans to expand railway lines as necessary for reducing carbon emissions, but said that some elements of the government proposals were contradictory and seemed to reflect a lack of review.
He cited plans to construct additional water reservoirs to guarantee water supplies as an example, saying that replacing old pipes to reduce leakage would be more cost-effective.
“The crucial issue is not whether we should pursue these projects — the question is how,” National Development Council Deputy Minister Tseng Shu-cheng (曾旭正) said, adding that the project’s genesis was originally geared at speeding up existing infrastructure construction plans.
He said that he “agreed” with complaints that the program had been proposed hastily and lacked civil participation, while dodging a question about whether it could be temporarily withdrawn for reformulation.
“The formulation of the policy involves a bunch of tangled issues including legislative formulation and budget drafting,” he said. “Whether it can be withdrawn is not a question I can answer.”
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