An organization set up to monitor the way lottery funds are spent yesterday won support from opposition parties for its fight against the Cabinet's plan to use some lottery revenues to fund an expansion of the senior-citizen stipend program.
The funds the Cabinet is eyeing are now earmarked for the plan-ned national pension program (
Representatives of The Lottery Proceeds Supervision Committee (
The Cabinet proposal passed its first reading in the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday in the absence of a number of opposition legislators.
The committee argued that the Cabinet's plan will actually delay the introduction of the national pension program, which the government plans to introduce next year.
The national pension scheme is still in the planning stages. Under the proposed plan all adults would be required to contribute to the pension system on a monthly basis until they are 65.
Once they turn 65 they would be eligible to receive a minimum stipend of NT$3,000 a month.
The senior-citizen stipend is an interim measure passed by the Legislative Yuan in May, retroactive to Jan. 1 this year, to last until until the national pension program is introduced.
The "means-tested" stipend is available to citizens aged 65 or older who are not covered by other pension programs.
Due to their shorter life expectancies, Aborigines are eligible to receive the stipend from the age of 55.
In the wake of protests by workers paying into the Labor Insurance Program, the Executive Yuan submitted a proposal at the end of August to use lottery revenues to fund expanding the stipend program to include retired workers benefiting from labor insurance payouts.
Most employees -- other than teachers, members of the armed forces and civil servants who are covered by pensions from other sources -- are covered by labor insurance. Casual and freelance workers are not covered.
Representatives of the TSU, PFP and KMT signed the committee's proposed bill to amend Article 13 of the Temporary Act for Provision of Welfare Subsidies to the Elderly (敬老福利生活津貼暫行條例).
"We don't have any problem with extending the senior-citizen stipends to retired workers, but we oppose the government funding the extension from lottery profits," said Wang Jung-chang (
The committee was founded earlier this year to monitor the use of funds generated by the Public Welfare Lottery, which was launched in January. Committee members include the Garden of Hope Foundation and the Eden Social Welfare Foundation.
The proposed extension of the stipend scheme would add some 111,000 recipients and cost an additional NT$4.4 billion a year.
About 440,000 senior citizens qualify for the stipend, at a cost of NT$16 billion per year.
The committee yesterday argued that "the proposal of the national pension program has not even been submitted to the legislature. How can the Cabinet just change the budget allocations?"
Current regulations give 50 percent of lottery proceeds to local governments for social welfare and charitable causes, 45 percent goes into a fund for the planned national pension program and 5 percent goes to the National Health Insurance Program.
PFP Legislator Chin Hui-chu (
Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), convener of the DPP legislative caucus, said that the DPP is willing to discuss the matter with the three parties, but "the government needs financial resources to implement social-welfare policies."
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