The legislative caucuses exchanged heated words yesterday over the frozen government budget bills, which have been blocked from the legislature's agenda for months, as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus decided on a preliminary review of the frozen bills on Thursday by skipping the Procedure Committee.
The DPP caucus made the decision during its caucus meeting, with caucus whip Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) saying that it had no alternative but to skip the pan-blue camp dominated committee in order to uphold the normal functions of the government.
"While the opposition caucuses had agreed during cross-party negotiations that they would not boycott the review of the budget bills, they didn't keep their promise," Chen said.
The amount of this year's annual government budget frozen by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) caucuses amounts to NT$ 221.2 billion (US$6,791,734,488), accounting for 14.07 percent of the total budget.
"The frozen budget covers some 210 different items, some of which are very important projects that the government is anxious to carry out," Chen said.
Another DPP caucus whip, Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津), criticized both the KMT and PFP caucuses for irrationally freezing the budget bills.
"Some of the frozen budget bills are earmarked for spending on personnel costs and for paying water and power bills. How can government employees carry on with their daily business without this money?" Yeh asked.
Yeh said that the DPP co-chairs of the legislative committees will put the bills on the preliminary review agendas of the appropriate committees on Thursday if the KMT and PFP caucuses keep blocking the bills during today's Procedure Committee meeting.
In accordance with legislative regulations, all bills are first sent to the Procedure Committee for review and to set the agenda of the bills.
KMT caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) urged the DPP caucus not to skip the Procedure Committee as it would only stir up confrontation among caucuses.
"The DPP caucus accuses us of hampering the government's operations, but its actions in skipping the Procedure Committee is aimed at paralyzing the legislature," Pan said.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said that it was improper to put the bills on the legislature's agenda without first obtaining the approval of the Procedure Committee.
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