The quintuple stimulus voucher program — like its predecessor, the Triple Stimulus Voucher program — would not exclude people in higher income brackets, Executive Yuan Spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said yesterday.
Chinese-language media have reported that the new program might be launched next month, but Lo yesterday said more planning is needed before a schedule could be confirmed.
The quintuple vouchers would be in print and digital form, with the denominations from the previous program — 200s and 500s — retained and a 1,000 voucher added, Lo said.
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
Each recipient would get 10 vouchers, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said that the Executive Yuan should justify spending what he estimated would be NT$13.65 billion (US$491.34 million) in administrative costs for this year’s program, more than six times what was spent last year — about NT$2 billion.
The increase in costs might be even greater to benefit contractors, Lai said.
Lo said it was impossible that the Executive Yuan would spend six times as much on administrative fees this year.
“Costs are expected to remain roughly the same as the previous program,” Lo said.
The exact amount to be spent on administration would not be known until the plans are settled, but the figure would not be what some commentators have claimed, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
Data showed that 21.51 million people, or 92.2 percent of the population, got paper vouchers in last year’s program, the ministry said.
The government’s goal is to promote digital vouchers, boosting their use above 7 percent, the rate they were used in the previous program, it said.
Separately, Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) on Wednesday said that the city is assessing whether it would issue subsidies in addition to the Cabinet’s planned vouchers.
The Taipei City Government would not issue paper vouchers, but is considering vouchers distributed via the TaipeiPass mobile app or direct subsidies to stores, prioritizing establishments that have been heavily affected by restrictions amid a nationwide COVID-19 alert, Huang said.
Plans for relief funding would be forwarded to the Taipei City Council next month for approval, she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS