In a bid to help local governments recover from Typhoon Nari's devastation, Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) yesterday told his Cabinet ministers to speed up reconstruction efforts.
"The public's interest is the Cabinet's responsibility," Chang said yesterday evening at a press conference, wherein government agencies announced detailed reconstruction measures the central government is undertaking.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Addressing Taipei City's traffic management, Minister of Transportation and Communication Yeh Chu-lan (
She said the city's MRT and railway services would gradually return to normal.
According to the ministry's plan, the subway system will start functioning shortly but will skip stations that have not been fully restored. Shuttles will be operating around MRT stations and priority will be given to buses on the city's major roads, including Chunghsiao East and West Roads (
She said that all the water had been pumped out of Taipei Railway Station, which had also been disinfected. The station was back in service for its route between Taipei and Kaohsiung as of 2pm yesterday.
As for telephone services, Yeh had earlier promised that all mobile and fixed-line communications would be back online by Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Lin Hsin-yi (林信義), minister of economic affairs, yesterday said that restoration efforts are underway at the country's utility services.
Lin said that 1,740,421 houses had been without water during the typhoon but only 209,775 houses were left without water as of late Friday night. He said that 64,137 houses were still without electricity yesterday, but promised that electricity to 50,000 houses would be restored by late last night. The other 14,000 houses will have electricity when power distribution boards dry up.
In addition, the Central Personnel Administration yesterday decided to implement flexible working hours for government employees to allow them to avoid rush- hour traffic.
Chu Wu-hsien (朱武獻), the administration's director-general, yesterday said that government employees would be allowed to report to work at any time between 7:30am and 9:30am and to leave between 4:30am and 6:30pm, working the normal eight hour work day.
Downplaying the Cabinet's frustration over recent economic troubles and a series of natural disasters, Chang yesterday called on the public to have confidence in the government, saying that he would like every citizen to keep "two Hs" in mind.
"Help and Hope. When disasters befall us, [we should] help others with altruistically and, therefore, hope shall arise to give us power," Chang said.
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