The fight among local governments and lawmakers over the terms of the controversial "tax redistribution fund" (
The national dailies reported yesterday that the Cabinet is considering revising the existing quota of the fund, favoring a proposal to reduce the current 47 percent of the funds given to Taipei and Kaohsiung cities to 43 percent while raising the quota for county governments.
Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma said the issue had been "politicized," while Hsieh said the reduction of the quota for both special municipality governments, if carried out, would cause "immediate and apparent damage."
Four KMT lawmakers from Taipei and Kaohsiung also held a press conference yesterday to urge the central government to secure the existing quota of the overall fund allocated to the two cities.
But after lobbying Cabinet members in a closed door meeting during the intermission of the general interpellation session in the legislature, KMT Lawmaker Huang Chao-shun (
"I am not optimistic," Huang said, adding she is considering launching a protest along with Kaohsiung city residents against the Executive Yuan if the new quota scheme falls short of their expectations.
Three county commissioners have been selected to attend today's Executive Yuan meeting on behalf of other county and city leaders. Two of them took issue with the central government as well as their counterparts in Taipei and Kaohsiung cities.
"The likely new scheme is unacceptable," Taipei County Commissioner Su Chen-chang (蘇貞昌) told the Taipei Times.
"Both 47 percent and 43 percents are numbers that should be abandoned once and for all," Su said. "The spirit of the tax redistribution fund is to reduce the differences between town and country."
Su claimed that the current fixed quota system simply failed to achieve such an objective.
To achieve this goal, the central government should instead adopt an allocation formula that takes into consideration various localities' populations, existing tax revenues and demands for infrastructure, he added.
According to Ministry of Fin-ance regulations, the allocation of these funds is determined by a fixed quota system.
The existing quota allows special municipalities, counties and townships respectively to receive 47 percent, 35 percent and 12 percent of the fund. Of the 47 percent allocated to the two special municipalities, Taipei gets 74 percent and Kaohsiung 26 percent.
Another chosen representative, Hualien County Commissioner Wang Chin-feng (
"President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that the central government would treat local governments in a fair manner in the same way parents should treat their children. Instead of only paying lip service to us, it's time that the president does something to carry out his promises," Wang said.
Despite being lobbied and pressured from all sides, Premier Tang Fei (
"We have not reached any final decision so far as this issue involves various complex problems," Tang said yesterday afternoon after the end of the general interpellation session in the legislature.
Tang, however, exchanged opinions with Cabinet members over the issue last night at the Executive Yuan.
Starting at 8:30am today, Tang will convene a meeting with members of the Cabinet to decide a proposal for adjusting the percentage of the fund, but the final decision will be reached at the Cabinet's weekly meeting later in the morning.
(See Alos:Cities)
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS