Cabinet officials yesterday lashed out at the hasty passage of this year's annual budget and amendments to the law governing the allocation of government revenues and expenditures.
Government Information Office (GIO) Secretary-General Su Tzen-ping (蘇正平) told reporters yesterday morning that the Cabinet was sorry to learn of the KMT-dominated legislature's rushed passage of amendments to the Law Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) proposed by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
"It's a shame to see the legislature fail to conduct cross-party negotiates and committee reviews before pushing through the bill on the third reading," Su said.
When asked whether Cabinet would seek a second review of the law when the legislature convenes its new session on Feb. 1, Su said the Cabinet will have to study the possibility further.
Lin Chuan (林全), head of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, told a press conference that yesterday's resolution, which he said "breaches the essence of the Budget Law" and that requires the Cabinet to trim NT$70 billion from its annual spending, is unconstitutional.
"The resolution is not only unconstitutional, it also lacks professionalism," he said at the GIO yesterday.
The legislature yesterday decided to cut the NT$1.34 trillion in Cabinet-projected revenues by NT$81.2 billion and the NT$1.59 trillion of annual spending by NT$12 billion.
The difference between revenues and spending is as much as NT$70 billion.
Echoing Su's remark, DPP legislative whip Tsai Huang-liang (
According to Tsai, there are two options available to the DPP in seeking a reversal of the decision during the next legislative session. The first, he said, would be for the Cabinet to veto the law, while the second would involve the DPP proposing a revision.
"The law is obviously unacceptable to us. After the three new whips are elected by the DPP caucus in next session, we will follow and co-operate the decision made by the new whips -- either to propose a revision or [for the Cabinet] to impose a veto," Tsai said.
Ma yesterday said now that the Legislative Yuan has passed the revision to the Law Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures, "central and local government will no longer need to fight over this issue over and over again every year.
"It is pointless to continue to fight over it," Ma said, in response to critics from some local governments over his proposal for allocating the tax redistribution fund.
Ma reiterated that under his proposal, every city and county would receive a share of the increased allocation from the fund.
"That being so, I don't understand why there are still people against it [my version]?"
Taipei City Government spokesman Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said that the city's proposal for allocation of the fund was just a first step.
"A better, fairer and more reasonable version still remains to be drawn up by the Legislative Yuan after it convenes for the new session," Wu said.
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