More than 40 draft bills regarding government restructuring plans at the Cabinet level are expected to be approved by the Executive Yuan on Thursday, a source with close knowledge of the matter said yesterday.
Conclusions have been reached on the proposed upgrade of the Environmental Protection Administration, but contrary to proposals made during previous discussions, only part of the Water Resources Agency’s responsibilities would be transferred to the proposed ministry, the source said, adding that officials at the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration have decided to divest the agency of about half of its tasks.
Tasks pertaining to economic growth — such as the appropriation of water for industrial use and river remediation projects — would remain under the agency’s jurisdiction, while tasks associated with conserving water resources would be moved under the purview of the proposed ministry of environmental resources, the source said.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
The planned ministry of environmental resources has been dubbed the “grand ministry,” as its responsibilities would cover some tasks previously undertaken by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture, the source added.
The Executive Yuan has prioritized 44 bills on the restructuring of Cabinet-level agencies for review during the current legislative session, of which the bill on restructuring the Mainland Affairs Council has passed a preliminary review.
Meanwhile, the debate over delegating the oversight of national parks has been settled, with the Ministry of the Interior being tapped to continue managing the parks after Premier William Lai (賴清德) acted as a mediator between Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) and concerned agency heads, the source said.
Lai also sought the opinion of Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers, none of whom objected to the arrangement, the source added.
The proposed government restructure was launched in 2012 following the passage of amendments to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法) in 2010.
However, the task has met with many obstacles, as agencies whose staff or responsibilities are set to be reduced have protested, with some even lobbying legislators to intercede.
Six proposed restructuring plans have yet to be completed, including plans to reform the Ministry of the Interior, the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, as well as the proposed ministries: the ministry of environmental resources, the ministry of economic affairs and energy, the ministry of transportation and construction and the ministry of agriculture.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift