Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday invited the nation's party chiefs to discuss the Cabinet's two projects aimed at lowering unemployment, but only TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (黃主文) agreed to attend the meeting to be held today, while both the PFP and KMT demonstrated little interest in the idea.
Chuang Suo-hang (
Meanwhile lawmakers from the DPP, staunch backers of the Executive Yuan's plan, called for support from the opposition on the two projects designed to help lower unemployment. The projects involve expansion of public facilities and services.
Speaking at a news conference, DPP Legislators Chiu Chuang-chin (邱創進), Kuo Chun-ming (郭俊銘) and Lai Ching-te (賴清德) jointly said that it is imperative that the two measures pass in this session to pave the way for the government to create some 115,000 new job opportunities.
Lai reasoned that the opposition parties should support the Executive Yuan's NT$70 billion drive since the unemployed nationwide also include supporters of the KMT and PFP.
Citing South Korea as an example, Lai said the South Korean government recently spread a huge fund equivalent to NT$170 billion over a four-year period to prop up the sluggish economy. He said the government-spending program lowered the nation's unemployment rate from 6.8 percent to 3 percent.
The South Korea plan worked, Lai said, "because it had full support from the ruling and all opposition parties" in the country's legislature.
However, Lee Chuan-chiao (
Lee said the two projects drafted by the Executive Yuan can only serve to sugar-coat deeper underlying problems, maintaining that the program would be of political gain for the DPP because it would produce short-term effects that could mislead the public into believing the problem of unemployment had been solved.
Meanwhile, Liu Wen-hsiung (
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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