The Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) said yesterday that its officials had committed administrative errors leading to a delay in payment of salaries at council-funded childcare centers in Pingtung County.
As part of a short-term employment project initiated by the council last year, it has been funding childcare centers run by non-governmental organizations in Aboriginal regions in Pingtung.
The project aims to provide better childcare in remote Aboriginal villages and create jobs for women.
Pingtung County’s Indigenous People’s Department (IPD) said that nearly 200 women benefited from the program last year.
However, Ko Hui-chen (柯惠珍), who works at a childcare center in Sandimen Township (三地門), Pingtung County, filed a complaint to the IPD, saying that childcare center employees had not been paid since January.
Ko said that she enjoyed working at the center, but may be forced to find a new job if she doesn’t get paid soon.
“We don’t have the money to pay them because the CIP has yet to deliver the budget to us,” IPD official Feng Pei-ling (馮佩玲) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Feng said when she contacted the CIP, it said that the delay was because the Pingtung County Government sent the required applications and documents too late.
“We turned in the required application in mid-January, but the CIP didn’t tell us that they needed additional documents until recent press reports addressed the issue” Feng said.
CIP Health and Welfare Department Deputy Director Chen Shu-min (陳淑敏) said that the council was unable to deliver the money because it didn’t receive all the required documents from the county government and that the daycare providers were not licensed to work at the centers under a rule that took effect in February.
She also said that childcare centers in more than 10 Aboriginal communities in Pingtung had been affected.
“Of course I have to admit that the CIP has committed administrative errors as we did not ask the county government to submit the additional documents in time and did not fully communicate with them about the new rule,” Chen said. “It’s our fault. Relevant officials will be penalized and we will travel to Pingtung [today] with Ministry of the Interior officials to see how we can resolve the license issue.”
In related news, Aboriginal lawmakers across party lines yesterday panned the CIP for not speaking for Aborigines when the Executive Yuan lowered the required percentage of Aboriginal workers in the Act for the Establishment and Management of Free Ports (自由貿易港區設置管理條例) from 5 percent to 1 percent during the weekly Cabinet meeting last week.
Facing criticism at the Internal Administration Committee meeting yesterday, CIP Vice Minister Watan Kiso defended the council by saying that it agreed to the change in order to establish a unified standard for the percentage of Aboriginal workers to be hired.
“There are also laws that only require employers to hire less than 1 percent of Aborigines, so for these industries, the percentage is actually an increase,” Watan said. “You can’t just look at the free ports case — we’re trying to establish a unified standard for all sectors.”
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS