When a national disaster strikes, the central government should team up with the relevant local government to provide relief to those affected, instead of wasting time on political point-scoring, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday following a press conference held by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Whether it is dealing with a disaster such as the gas pipeline explosions in Greater Kaohsiung or drawing up contingency plans for flood prevention, close cooperation between the central and local governments is needed to get funds and personnel on site as quickly as possible, DPP spokesperson Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) said.
“This is not the time for recrimination. The nation needs a rapid response plan to protect Greater Kaohsiung residents, as well as the petrochemical industry,” Hsu said.
Separately, Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) criticized Ma’s press conference saying the president had not only not said anything new, but tried to shift the blame away from himself.
It is common sense that after a disaster, issues of relief, culpability and prevention must be discussed, Huang said, adding that Ma’s press conference bypassed the disaster to focus on other matters.
Criticizing what he called the Ma administration’s attempts to shift blame to the Greater Kaohsiung Government for not taking preventive measures, as well as Ma’s doling out slogans instead of help to those affected by the blasts, Huang said “such an attitude is not one becoming of the head of state.”
Huang also said the president was “too removed from the real world” to claim that the student-led Sunflower movement had stalled the draft cross-strait oversight act.
“If it were not for the movement, there would be no draft act,” he said. “Ma is the one who should be blamed for delaying the oversight act’s passage by trying to skirt democratic procedures with the cross-strait services trade pact.”
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