A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) faction yesterday attacked Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials for counting the years they worked for the KMT before entering public office to help qualify for generous retirement benefits.
"Why do they deserve to get that?" asked DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (
"The KMT is clearly mixing its party coffers with those of the state and it is a venomous legacy of the authoritarian era," he said.
Citing the example of KMT Vice Chairman Kuan Chong (關中), Gao said 10 years of Kuan's "civil service" was in fact spent working for the KMT.
While the KMT should have been paying retirement contributions for the time he worked there, taxpayers are instead bearing the burden, Gao said.
Gao also singled out former Presidential Office secretary general Ding Mao-shih (丁懋時), former Judicial Yuan president Shih Chi-yang (施啟揚), former minister of transportation and communications Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正), former Control Yuan president Wang Tso-jung (王作榮) and Loh I-cheng (陸以正), a former ambassador to South Africa, as have taken advantage of the tactic.
DPP caucus whip Jao Yung-ching (
While the 18 percent preferential interest rate given to civil servants "deserved immediate review," DPP Legislator Chen Tsiao-long (陳朝龍) criticized the pan-blue alliance for twisting the DPP government's "good intentions" and creating tension between the government and civil servants.
Vice Minister of Civil Service Wu Tsung-cheng (吳聰成) said it is legitimate for retirees to count the time they worked at the KMT because a KMT government order in December 1971 legalized the practice. The decree, however, was nullified in 1987 for civil servants who were yet to retire.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS