Some items in the Cabinet’s NT$60 billion (US$1.99 billion) special budget to bail out sectors affected by COVID-19 are unnecessary, while others need to be better planned, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) said yesterday.
Some of the money could be put to better use, such as improving disease prevention measures at markets and stores, she said at the Legislative Yuan during a question-and-answer session with Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Cabinet officials.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has said that the special budget would be tapped to cover pressing disease-prevention work or subsidize sectors in urgent need of help, but some items appear to overlap with existing policies, while other do not appear to be urgent, such as the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ plan to earmark NT$260 million to help restaurants and retailers incorporate e-commerce technologies into their operations, Wang said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
At least 25,000 restaurants and eateries nationwide already use food-delivery companies, while about 63 percent of retailers have already embraced e-commerce, she said.
Stores and retailers should be allowed to engage in fair competition in a free market, and efforts to help digitize their services should be funded by the general budget, not a special budget, she added.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told Wang that although existing policies and budgets are helping stores and retailers digitize their services, the ministry would use the proposed budget to help business directly affected by COVID-19.
RENOVATION PROJECTS
Wang asked Shen why NT$500 million was earmarked to renovate traditional and night markets, when a NT$475 million project with the same purpose had already been implemented.
Shen said that the proposal included in the special budget would be an improvement over the existing project, as the government believes that the timing is ideal for such efforts.
Prior to the outbreak, market stall operators shunned the government’s renovation projects, such as adjusting the pathways, improving drainage systems or installing lighting or canopies at the markets, saying that such projects could hurt their businesses, Su said.
With fewer people shopping in such markets now, it is an ideal time to tackle renovation projects, so when the outbreak blows over, consumers would have a better shopping experience, Su added.
However, Wang said that the government should use the special budget on more practical policies, such as boosting disease-prevention measures and disinfection at stores and markets, so that more people would be willing to shop there, despite the outbreak.
To mitigate the economic losses sustained by small and medium-sized enterprises, the government could let them postpone filing income taxes and pay their taxes in installments after the outbreak is contained, she said.
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