The Executive Yuan should not monetarily reward retired public servants at next year’s Lunar New Year holiday, because such payments lack a legal basis and run counter to efforts to push for pension reform, the New Power Party (NPP) said yesterday.
As the first cross-caucus negotiation round drew to a close yesterday, the NPP held a news conference in Taipei to promote its pension reform platform.
Referring to a directive issued last week by Premier Lin Chuan (林全) to continue paying holiday bonuses to former public servants whose monthly pension is less than NT$25,000 (US$822.34), NPP caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said the NT$25,000 threshold was set by the Executive Yuan to justify the payments as they are not stipulated in any law.
Photo: CNA
The Executive Yuan last year resolved to stop issuing holiday bonuses to retired civil servants receiving a pension of more than NT$25,000 for the Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The rule change is expected to save the government NT$870 million annually.
Lin’s order triggered speculation that the government is attempting to appease civil servants to avoid intensifying the already strong opposition to pension reform efforts.
During the regular legislative session, which wrapped up last month, the NPP proposed that the budget for holiday bonuses be slashed, but the proposal was vetoed, Hsu said.
The Executive Yuan should scrap the plan to bring its policy in line with pension reform efforts, he said.
NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) also called for the “total abolition” of the 18 percent preferential interest rate on savings accounts for retired public servants hired before 1995.
According to a draft put forward by the Presidential Office’s Pension Reform Committee, this group of pensioners — who under the old pension system had claimed their pension in full — would still receive a 6 percent interest rate after a proposed civil servant pension bill is passed, in addition to a proposed bottom limit for pensions received by public servant, set at NT$32,000.
“We understand that some retired civil servants need to be taken care of, but that is covered by the ‘bottom limit,’” Huang said.
The NPP has proposed setting the lower limit for civil pensions at NT$22,208, the median value of people’s disposable income, he said.
Huang called on legislative caucuses not to leave any “loose ends” by allowing former civil servants to keep a 6 percent interest rate, saying that otherwise they would only be going halfway on reform efforts.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS