The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday presented what it described as six botched policies by President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration during its 20 months in office.
Tsai should engage in introspection about how to improve her governance during the Lunar New Year holiday, KMT officials said at a news conference at its Taipei headquarters.
Comparing the administration’s policies to types of cuisine, the KMT prepared six dishes, each symbolizing an unraveling policy introduced by the Tsai administration, with which KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said Tsai’s administration had “force-fed” the public.
The first dish, called “fipronil tamagoyaki,” highlights Council of Agriculture (COA) Minister Lin Tsung-hsien’s (林聰賢) incompetence in curbing the circulation of fipronil-tainted eggs last year, which resulted in the contaminated eggs being sold in stores and allowed the banned insecticide to reach more chicken farms, Hung said.
As more fipronil-tained eggs were found in farms in southern Taiwan, the council announced that it was raising the legally permissible limits for fipronil in eggs from 5 parts per billion (ppb) to 10ppb, he said, adding that it shows a complete disregard for public health and the rights of law-abiding poultry farmers.
The “eight-treasure sweet and salty rice pudding” is for the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s scrapped “child-rearing treasure chest,” a bag whose contents were to include diapers, baby wipes and policy promotional pamphlets about the government’s policies on helping first-time parents.
The ministry initially requested NT$200 billion (US$6.8 billion) for the “treasure chests,” which reportedly cost about NT$1,000 each, but later scrapped the project amid mounting criticism.
“How can people decide to have children for something that is worth just about NT$1,000?” Hung said, adding that the policy likely induced mixed feelings among parents, leaving a funny taste in their mouths that was both sweet and salty.
The “weeping Buddha woefully jumps over the wall” is a play on the traditional pork stew Buddha jumps over the wall (fotiaoqiang, 佛跳牆) and refers to Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu’s (林美珠) amendment of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) in December last year — a package that, like the stew, contains many “goodies” for employers at the cost of making workers suffer with policies such as shortening the rest time between shifts and having employees work for more than six consecutive days.
The “four-delight mullet roe combo” symbolizes four ways Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) used to shirk his responsibility to improve air pollution in the municipality: conducting polls favoring himself to show people that he had made an effort to tackle air pollution; participating in a parade against air pollution in which he portrayed himself as a victim of air pollution; claiming that Taichung posted the greatest improvement nationwide in reducing air pollution; and slashing the output capacity of the coal-fired Taichung Power Plant, which has caused an energy shortage and led to the planned reactivation of the Guo-sheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里), KMT spokesman Huang Chien-hao (黃建豪) said.
The “seasonal greetings fried chicken cutlet” is an apparent play on a vulgar Chinese-language slang used to represent frustration over tax reforms led by Premier William Lai (賴清德) that were passed by the legislature last month, which would reduce ordinary people’s tax payments by an average NT$11,355, while gifting each of the nation’s 1,000 most prominent stock investors an estimated NT$3.78 million, Huang said.
The “soft spot” is a piece of meat served by Tsai, the “executive chef,” who during her presidential election campaign in 2016 said she “has a soft spot for workers,” but has only allowed labor standards to deteriorate, he said.
Tsai claimed that the meat is “soft and tender,” but it could not taste any “stiffer” for workers, he said.
Tsai should use the holiday to reflect upon her mistakes, so that she can dish out some decent meals that would make people happy in the remainder of her presidency, Hung and Huang said.
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