To quell the controversy over the eligibility of Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-yi (林萬億) for the 18 percent preferential savings rate that is granted to public-sector retirees, Lin yesterday said he would not claim the benefit if it is still available when he retires.
The minister, who is the deputy convener and executive director of the Presidential Office’s pension reform committee, has been engulfed in the controversy because he is eligible as a former sociology professor at National Taiwan University, for the preferential rate, and critics from across party lines questioned his role in the pension reform effort as a result.
A key goal of the reform effort is to phase out the preferential savings rate offered to retired military service members, public-school teachers and civil servants.
Lin made the promise in a statement issued by the Executive Yuan.
He could have retired 10 years ago to maximize his retirement benefits, but he did not and has not claimed any pension benefits so far, he said.
Although he has reached the retirement age of 65 for educators, he has not retired as he is still holds public office, he said.
Lin was widely criticized after saying on Saturday that he would not “put on a show or act as if he was morally better than others by giving up the 18 percent savings rate,” and that he would claim whatever he is legally entitled to when he retired.
“An unreasonable system should be reformed, and the focus should not be placed on any individual,” Lin said, adding that he did not design the reform proposals to the advantage of himself or others.
Lin’s statement on Saturday drew attention as he had previously criticized the preferential interest rate.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Choi-shui (林濁水) said while the preferential savings rate has been considered a flawed system contributing to the financial woes of the pension systems, the minister’s unwillingness to give up the benefit suggested a conventional mindset that would leave the reform effort “half-baked.”
“Were [former DPP chairman] Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and [President] Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) putting on a show [when they announced they would give up the preferential rate]?” Lin Choi-shui said.
Lin Wan-yi has been named an honorary professor at his former university, but that would not entitle him to any additional retirement benefits, the Executive Yuan said.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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