The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said yesterday it expected the Cabinet to request a special budget of at least NT$200 billion (US$6 billion) for reconstruction.
DPP whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) told a press conference that his caucus would support the special budget proposal, but it should equal that of the reconstruction budget after the 921 Earthquake.
The government requested a total of NT$210 billion for reconstruction after a major earthquake hit the nation on Sept 21, 1999.
PHOTO: PATRICK LIN, AFP
“We hope the Cabinet would request a minimum budget of NT$200 billion to maintain employment and help small and medium businesses recover [after the disaster],” Wang said. “The government can spend as much money as it wants. We will not block the budget proposal.”
The Executive Yuan said on Wednesday it still had about NT$40 billion from this year's budget that it could use for relief work and reconstruction. However, it changed its mind late on Thursday night and said it would pursue a special statute to request a special budget of at least NT$70 billion.
Senior Cabinet officials calculated losses caused by Morakot and concluded that more funds would be needed for reconstruction.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said his caucus would fully cooperate if the legislature were to hold an extraordinary session to review the budget proposal.
The fall legislative session is scheduled to begin on Sept. 18.
Wang said the DPP caucus would also invite officials of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Council of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education to a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the three agencies' proposal to grant stipends to victims of the disaster.
KMT Aboriginal Legislator Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉) urged the government to submit a special reconstruction plan for southern Taiwan to the legislature.
Kung, who has just returned to Taipei from the disaster-hit Aboriginal village of Jialan (嘉蘭) in Jinfong Township (金峰) in Taitung County, called on the government to learn from the Marshall Plan.
The Marshall Plan, or the European Recovery Program, was proposed by the US after the World War II to help rebuild countries in western Europe.
“Whether it takes NT$100 or NT$200 billion to complete the reconstruction work, the government should show its resolution to carry out reconstruction work,” Kung said.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS