The Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program draft bill review should be held again, the legislature’s Economics Committee convenor said yesterday, adding that there were flaws in her chairing of Wednesday’s review, which passed the bill amid chaos.
The convenor, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩), said she would reschedule the review for Monday, Wednesday and Thursday next week to allow for detailed, clause-by-clause deliberation.
“I am willing to take responsibility and rearrange the review. Can lawmakers of the opposition party give up hatred, restart conversations, keep their promise to not disrupt the procedure and make efforts to improve the nation’s infrastructure?” Chiu asked, calling on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) not to boycott the draft bill.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
She said the DPP did not boycott a four-year NT$500 billion (US$16.6 billion) economic stimulus project proposed by then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2008, which allowed the project to be approved within a month.
KMT caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) said the new review is “acceptable, as it is precisely our call,” but demanded a formal decision be announced by the legislative speaker or by a cross-caucus meeting, rather than on Facebook.
The New Power Party caucus yesterday morning had already asked Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) to call a cross-caucus negotiation meeting and restart substantive review, and later said it “welcomes” the DPP caucus’ decision.
Su said Chiu’s proposal is “highly commendable” and he expects there would be no boycott or physical altercations during the new review.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) sought to assuage concerns and drum up support for the infrastructure plan, calling on all parties to put aside preconceived ideas and treat the program in a practical and reasonable manner.
No part of the plan is to be implemented until environmental impact assessments have been carried out, Lin said in response to concerns expressed by environmental groups over some of the proposed transportation projects.
There would also be no major relocation of people or land requisitions, he added.
He made the comments when speaking at a weekly Cabinet meeting, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said.
Lin addressed these criticisms a day after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the Cabinet was not doing enough to help the public understand the plan.
Lawmakers of the ruling and opposition parties on Wednesday pushed and shoved each other during a joint committee session before the bill passed its preliminary review.
The statute would allow the Cabinet to spend NT$882.49 billion over eight years to build infrastructure projects across the nation, including new light railways and several rail extension or improvement projects.
There will be no question of leaving future generations in debt as a result of the plan, Lin said.
When announcing the plan last month, Lin said that government spending is expected to lead to NT$1.77 trillion in private-sector investment and add 0.7 percent to the nation’s GDP growth each year over the eight-year period.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching