The Executive Yuan is planning to set a cap of 200,000 on the number of central government employees, slightly higher than the current 191,000, but vowed to reduce the number in the long term, Central Personnel Administration Minister Cheng Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) said on Thursday.
Chen made the remarks at a press conference after attending a Cabinet-level meeting convened by Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) on streamlining the government.
The meeting was held to deliberate a draft bill that would cap the total number of civil servants employed in the five branches of central government and another that would transform some government agencies into administrative corporations in order to enhance efficiency.
Article 3 of the Constitution requires the total number of personnel of national organizations to be subject to standards set by law, but that bill has been stalled for years.
“To meet the requirement of the Constitution, we need to stipulate a ceiling [on the number of civil servants] in the bill, but it will not set a cap for each branch in order to provide necessary flexibility,” Chen said.
Chen said the newly established intellectual property courts and the ongoing opening up of cross-strait transportation services would necessitate more government employees.
“While the bill will give more leeway for government organizations to recruit more people, our long-term goal is to make gradual personnel cuts,” Chen said.
Chen said the Executive Yuan has yet to decide which national organizations will be transformed into administrative corporations, but those selected would be organizations such as research institutions and not those directly involved in the exercise of power.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
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