Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) Minister Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday that his agency would propose a plan to improve the government’s efficiency within three months.
Jiang said that Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) was very unhappy about the criticism leveled at the government over its lack of efficiency.
Taiwan declined in terms of “government effectiveness” in the latest Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996-2008 report released on Monday by the World Bank Group, receiving its lowest score since 1998.
In the report, Taiwan was still second tier in the category of government effectiveness, meaning that its performance fell between the 75th and 90th percentile of all nations, but its ranking had dropped to 22 from 17 the year before.
The Chinese-language China Times reported that Liu was angry with the chronic problem of government documents needlessly traveling back and forth among agencies.
One example cited was the failure of the Central Personnel Administration (CPA) to complete a draft proposal on a system of awards and penalties to supervise public construction projects five months after he gave the order.
“Under Liu’s instruction, RDEC has established a task force to study possible measures to enhance government effectiveness,” Jiang said.
The task force will work out solutions to bureaucracy problems based on the suggestions of foreign and local business associations over the past three years, Jiang said.
It usually takes from four to six months to complete the paperwork on a policy because documents might go through different agencies, Jiang said.
Jiang said that government officials should meet face to face so they can save time by solving problems on the spot instead of exchanging opinions in documents.
In related news, the CPA yesterday issued a press statement saying that it was set to deliberate on how to establish a system of awards and penalties after receiving the order from Liu.
Liu gave the order in February.
The CPA said that it received the document on April 8 and a documents were sent to related agencies to collect their opinions within a week.
It then referred the collected views to the Public Construction Commission (PCC) for reference before it drafted its initial proposal.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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