The Cabinet plans to minimize the budget for the symbolic Taiwan Provincial Government, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.
Lai made the remarks during a question-and-answer session with New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
Lim showed Lai a screen grab from the introduction page of the provincial government’s English-language Web site, which refers to Taiwan as a “province,” which he said is confusing.
He asked Lai whether it is necessary to grant the agency, along with the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council and the Fujian Provincial Government, a yearly budget of nearly NT$300 million (US$10.28 million), which he said is “wasteful,” considering that their work of giving awards, holding conferences, and promoting culture and traditions can also be done by the central or local governments.
While the Executive Yuan is not authorized to abolish the provincial government, which was set up according to the Constitution, he hopes that the provincial government’s budget could be minimized, Lai said.
The budget earmarked for the provincial government for the next fiscal year is to be decreased, and it would only be granted funding to perform necessary tasks, such as running service centers in Kinmen and Lienchiang counties, Lai said.
Asked whether he believes constitutional reform is important, the premier said that he believes that it is and pledged to move the task forward during Cabinet-level meetings.
Lim also asked Lai to address the issue of land allegedly occupied by former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) father, Lien Chen-tung (連震東), when he took over the Jen Chi Hospital from the Japanese colonial government, which he said has infringed upon nearby residents’ right to accommodation.
Rather than making the hospital in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) a public foundation like it was during the Japanese colonial era, Lien Chen-tung, who was an official in charge of taking over facilities left behind by the Japanese government in Taipei after World War II, in 1945 privatized and occupied it, Lim said.
The land Lien Chen-tung allegedly took covers about 99,174m2, which is still controlled by the Lien family, he said.
Lim said he tried to search for any transaction records following the transfer of the hospital, but all he could find was an official document that showed that the hospital had apparently been occupied by the Lien family.
More than 1,000 residents from about 300 households adjacent to the hospital live in dilapidated houses, but the hospital’s management has allegedly told residents who want to initiate an urban renewal project to either make a large donation to the hospital in exchange for its consent to carry out a project or accept urban renewal plans proposed by the hospital, which contain terms that are unfavorable to residents, Lim said.
The hospital’s bullying of residents threatens their safety, he said.
Lim asked Lai how the Cabinet would deal with assets illegally obtained by individuals or organizations that do not represent any political party, as they are not covered by the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例).
Lai said that he would instruct responsible agencies to investigate the case and report to Lim.
The hospital, as a private foundation, should uphold civic ethics and help residents solve accommodation problems before the investigation is complete, the premier 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