A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker yesterday said the Executive Yuan had failed to properly monitor the selection and payment of the heads of foundations part-funded by the government.
"The Executive Yuan has not carried out its duty to supervise these foundations partly funded by the government in the three years since the DPP government came into power," Legislator Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said.
"Apparently, you [the Executive Yuan] have failed to clean up the former administration's dust after successfully removing the sofa," Luo said during an interpellation with Premier Yu Shyi-kun.
According to Luo, the government had put NT$106 billion toward establishing more than 130 foundations before the beginning of last year.
"But only nine of them were supervised by laws, while another seven foundations were being run government authorities," Luo said.
"The operation of the remaining quasi-official foundations lacked proper legal surveillance or governmental regulation, resulting in many of them being taken over by retired government officials without transparent discussion nor their wage being publicly approved," Luo said.
Lu said he was furious over a rejection by many ministries of the request to disclose the wages of the chairmen heading government-funded foundations.
"They turned down the legislative request on the excuse of business confidentiality," Luo said. "I found that only the foundations managed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of Finance and the Economic Affairs Ministry attached their plan of operation and finance for next year in the 2004 central government budget," Luo said.
He said that the NT$300,000 monthly salary for the managing director of the Food Industry Research and Development Institute -- double that of a deputy minister of the Economic Affairs Ministry's wage -- was unfair.
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