The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is to discipline three Irrigation and Water Conservancy Association heads over their public support for a plan to nationalize the associations, which is against the party line, a party source said on Sunday.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday last week passed amendments to the Organic Regulations for Irrigation and Water Conservancy Associations (農田水利會組織通則) amid a KMT boycott.
The amendments abolish direct elections for association heads and mandates the government to fill the positions by appointments.
On Tuesday last week, Hsieh Fu-hung (謝福弘) of Miaoli, Lin Keng-hsin (林庚辛) of Nantou and Yang Ming-feng (楊明風) of Chiayi-Tainan voiced their support for the proposal by speaking at a news conference called by the DPP caucus.
Their public support of the amendments was deemed embarrassing to the KMT, as KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) was at the time scrambling local party chapters and the pro-KMT associations to oppose the amendments.
The KMT is this week to initiate disciplinary hearings against the three association heads at local party chapters, the source said.
The three are to be accused of “contradicting the ideals, charter, platform, policy or resolutions of the party,” which carry the minimum penalty of suspension of party membership, the source said.
The maximum penalty is expulsion from the KMT, the source said, adding that such a measure would need to be ratified by the KMT Central Standing Committee tomorrow.
Yang has deviated from the party’s position and the KMT must treat the issue with an attitude that will be conducive for maintaining party cohesion, KMT Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介), who is also the city’s chapter convener, said on Sunday.
“Yang called a news conference to support the government’s appointment of irrigation and water conservancy association heads, and put himself on a collision course with the party’s ideals and policies. Yang could have been decisive about it and quit the party himself,” Hsieh said.
DPP Legislator Liu Chao-hao (劉櫂豪) criticized the KMT’s move, saying the “the incident shows that the KMT cannot see past partisanship when debating policies. Its path will get ever more narrow.”
Yang told the news conference that water is not blue or green, but clear, Liu said, adding that the KMT’s disciplinary action demonstrates “a tendency to self-belittle.”
The KMT in 1993 supported a proposal to reform the associations along the lines of the DPP’s current policy and it is saddening that the KMT would punish its members over the issue, Liu said.
The DDP is only doing what the KMT lacked the political will to do, he added.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS