The Cabinet and an umbrella group representing farmers' and fishermen's associations remained at loggerheads last night over the proposal to hold a national conference on agricultural finance.
The group accused the Cabinet of reneging on an agreement that the conference would be cancelled.
"From Monday night until this morning, everything had gone smoothly, but the Cabinet changed its mind over the holding of the national agricultural conference yesterday evening, which has really frustrated us, said Yan Jian-sian (顏建賢), secretary-general of Taiwan Agro-Fighters United (TAFU), the umbrella organization.
"It's so difficult to communicate with them," Yan said.
Yan said that the organization's representatives and Cabinet Secretary General Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) reached an agreement shortly after 11am yesterday that the national conference on agricultural financing would be called off.
Liu, however, phoned TAFU chairman Pai Tien-chih (白添枝) at about 6pm to tell him that arrangements for the conference, scheduled for Nov. 30, had already been made and it was too late to cancel the event.
Lunchtime TV news bulletins yesterday ran segments saying that the conference had been cancelled, but the Cabinet told reporters in the afternoon that no such agreement had been made.
"If no agreement was reached, why did Liu call us revising the agreement in the evening?" Yen asked.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun announced that the conference would be held by the end of the year, following his meeting with seven county commissioners and representatives of their counties' associations at the end of October.
TAFU, however, has opposed any such conference, arguing that the Legislative Yuan is the proper place to discuss financial reform.
"The conference would invite representatives from industry, government and academia, but no consensus would be reached. We believe the agricultural finance bill should simply be reviewed and negotiated in the Legislative Yuan," Yan told reporters.
Yan said, "We haven't decided how to react to the Cabinet's repeated changes of mind.
At the end of October, TAFU announced its decision to take 100,000 farmers and fishermen onto the streets of Taipei this Saturday to voice opposition to the central government's recently implemented scheme to reform the credit departments of farmers' and fishermen's associations.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (
Their appeals followed the government's announcement on Sunday that it was suspending its recently introduced three-tier risk control mechanism.
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