As of next year, the Taiwan Provincial Government will no longer be funded, and members of the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council would to be reassigned to county and municipal governments, which would take over the province’s responsibilities, Taiwan Provincial Governor Wu Tze-cheng (吳澤成) said yesterday.
He told the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee that the council had 57 members, of whom nine are to retire this year, with the remainder to take on new roles as of Jan. 1 next year.
The provincial government, based in Nantou County’s Jhongsing New Village (中興新村), had held a meeting in November last year to evaluate its responsibilities, and determined that 12 of its tasks could be discarded, and four could be handled by the central and local governments, while it would retain 23 tasks, Wu said.
At a meeting of provincial government and Executive Yuan representatives on Dec. 14 last year determined that aside from record-keeping, which would be handled by the provincial government, its tasks would be handled by the central and local governments, Wu said, adding that officials would be dispatched to handle record-keeping and other tasks when needed.
The majority of its tasks would be handled by the National Development Council, with the remaining duties taken over by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Interior, Wu said.
Its 39 regular and 18 custodial and engineering employees would also be reassigned, he said.
A three-week National Development Conference in December 1996 decided to downsize the functions and organizations of the provincial government and freeze the gubernatorial election as part of overall plans to streamline the nation’s government.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
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Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard