In view of the poor results from the government’s two policies on cross-strait weekend charter flights and the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan, the legislature’s budget center is suggesting that lawmakers slash the budget for these two policies.
The government will draw criticism for wasting public money if it insists on spending the full budget to expand facilities and hire personnel in relation to the implementation of the two policies, the budget center said.
In a report conducted by the center aimed at reviewing the government’s next fiscal year, it said the government drew up the budget for Chinese tourists based on an estimate of 3,000 Chinese tourists per day.
However, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan since July 4 has fallen far short of expectations, the report said.
There was “a great gap between the expectation and reality” as only 4,476 Chinese tourists visited Taiwan in July and the number was 7,096 in August, the budget center said.
The center said it would not be cost-effective to expand hardware and software facilities in all of the nation’s eight airports when in actuality, the only airports often used for cross-strait week end charter flights services wereTaiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Kaohsiung International Airport and Taipei Songshan Airport.
Citing the National Immigration Agency (NIA) as an example, the budget center said the agency had requested and obtained more than NT$100 million from the government’s supplementary budget this year and is requesting another NT$200 million for next year to carry out work related to the two policies.
The NIA alone has spent NT$63 million in facility investments and related personnel expenditures, the report said.
Asked for comments on the budget center’s suggestion to slash the budgets, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said it was too early to determine the performance of the two policies, adding that the assessment should be made the year after next.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, on the other hand, agreed with the budget center’s suggestion. DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) said the government should not make the same mistake many private businesses had made in their over-anticipation of economic gains to be brought by Chinese tourists and throw money at projects that don’t promise any revenue in return.
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