Cross-caucus negotiations over the general government budget continued into their second day yesterday, with opposition parties suggesting reducing the Cabinet’s budget due to controversy surrounding the latest labor law amendments.
The general budget submitted by the Cabinet for the current fiscal year estimates NT$1.99 trillion (US$67.61 billion) in spending and projects, and NT$1.89 trillion in revenue.
The Cabinet on Friday reduced the estimated spending by NT$14.7 billion and further budget cuts were made during yesterday’s cross-caucus negotiations.
The negotiations were scheduled to review the budget requests within the purview of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee and Economics Committee.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) raised a motion to cut the Executive Yuan’s NT$11.24 million budget for policy enforcement and legal affairs by NT$5 million, and freeze 10 percent of the remaining budget.
The budget cut was proposed due to the hasty revision of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) twice in one year and the Cabinet’s failure to comply with a rule to ensure a discussion period of 60 days for a newly announced bill when implementing the latest labor law amendments, KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said.
The New Power Party (NPP) also proposed freezing the NT$11.24 million budget, and NPP Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) asked Cabinet officials to submit a formal report to the legislature about a possible further revision of the labor act as a prerequisite for unfreezing the budget.
The NPP also proposed freezing several budgets of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police Agency as it questioned the standard response procedure for law enforcement personnel in dealing with protests.
Hsu asked Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) and National Police Agency Director-General Chen Chia-chin (陳家欽) to present a formal report to the legislature over the protest control protocol, to which Yeh and Chen agreed.
The KMT’s and the NPP’s proposals are to be put to a vote during a plenary session.
If the cross-caucus negotiation of the budget proposals within the purview of the Economics Committee was not finalized yesterday, it would stall the whole review process, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said, adding that it would try to complete the review process by the end of this month to honor the DPP administration’s pledge to raise the salary of public employees by 3 percent.
As of 8pm yesterday, lawmakers had completed negotiating the budget requests under the purview of the Internal Administration Committee and moved on to those under the purview of the Economics Committee.
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