The Cabinet is considering asking the legislature to hold a revote on the central government general budget plan, and could freeze half of subsidies to local governments as it reworks funding plans, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday.
At a news conference in Taipei, his third on the matter since the legislature began voting on budget downsizing proposals on Friday last week, Cho said the Cabinet would seek “remedies” to overturn the NT$2.92 trillion (US$89.1 billion) budget plan passed by the legislature on Tuesday.
The revised plan includes NT$207.6 billion of cuts to the Cabinet’s original budget proposal, an approximately 6.6 percent reduction, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Asked about what such remedies would entail, the premier said requesting the legislature hold a revote on a bill deemed difficult to implement is “the right and obligation of the Executive Yuan under Article 3 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution [憲法增修條文].”
Calling the spending cuts and freezes “suicidal,” Cho said they would “paralyze government operations” and cause “immeasurable damage” to the nation.
To protect the Executive Yuan, Cho said he has asked Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) and Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) to collate all the subsidized projects and budgets that were approved last year and review them after the Lunar New Year.
As long as it does not involve social welfare policies that affect underprivileged groups, 50 percent of the subsidies to local governments would be frozen, he said.
The economy grew by 4.27 percent last year, so the government should enable people to live a better life, boost industrial development and strengthen the nation’s sovereignty, Cho said.
The opposition’s austerity measures include cutting NT$100 billion in aid for state-owned Taiwan Power Co (台電), which has sustained huge losses due to rising global oil prices and the government’s hesitance to raise utility prices.
The DGBAS said that the legislature has also frozen an estimated NT$160.7 billion in funding for various government agencies, including nearly NT$90 billion for the Ministry of National Defense and about NT$16 billion for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Those ministries would not be able to access the frozen funds until they complete specific tasks requested by lawmakers and brief them about the outcomes.
The DGBAS data showed that both the budget cuts and freezes, driven mainly by lawmakers from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), were exceptionally high compared with the past decade.
However, as of yesterday, the legislature had not submitted the approved budget plan to the Executive Yuan, meaning the latter would likely have to wait until after the Lunar New Year holiday to take its next steps.
The Cabinet would, with the approval of the president, request a reconsideration by lawmakers within 10 days of receiving the legislature’s notification if it finds “a statutory, budgetary or treaty bill passed by the Legislative Yuan difficult to execute.”
Cho also apologized to contract government employees, who would not be able to receive raises this year due to the cuts.
More than 110,000 people working for central and local governments would be affected, Cho said, citing Examination Yuan data.
The KMT yesterday published a series of social media posts accusing the Democratic Progressive Party of spreading rumors and overseeing wasteful spending.
“As hard-earned taxpayers’ money has fallen into the pockets of fat cats, the opposition party naturally cannot just sit back and watch, and it must strictly monitor the situation,” it wrote.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘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
RSS