The Taipei City Government said yesterday it was determined to pay back its National Health Insurance subsidy debts within five years, dismissing allegations that it recently tried to take back several plots of land seized by the central government by exchanging them for 13 plots with lower market value.
The Supreme Administrative Court has ordered the city government to pay NT$34.7 billion (US$1.06 billion) in debt accumulated since 1999, when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then the mayor of Taipei, stopped payments in protest against the method of calculating insurance contributions.
The Bureau of National Health Insurance seized 31 plots of land in 2004 and asked the city government to auction the land and pay its debts.
A report in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday said Ma had been pressuring the bureau to return the 31 plots of land to the city government in exchange for 13 plots of land that have a lower estimated market value.
The city government’s Finance Department and Labor Department yesterday acknowledged that the city government was trying to swap land with the bureau, but said it had proposed 22 plots of land with an estimated market value of NT$800 million which are located in upmarket districts, including Zhongzheng (中正) and Zhongshan (中山) districts.
Department commissioner Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) said the bureau had inspected the 22 plots of land and agreed to exchange them for two plots of land it had seized, valued at around NT$700 million.
The two plots of land were to be used to build the No. 2 Nangang Exhibition Hall and Taipei Cultural and Tourism Exchange Center before being seized by the central government.
“Most of the 22 plots are located in areas with great development potential, and the city government would actually suffer losses by only getting back two pieces of land,” he said.
Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴), commissioner of the city’s labor department, said Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) had told department heads in a municipal meeting that he wanted the issue resolved and the debts repaid within five years.
Local governments are required by law to pay one-third of the costs of medical treatment incurred in the previous year by residents in their jurisdiction.
Ma refused to pay the debts and argued that it was unfair to ask the city to cover those who work in Taipei but whose household registration was not in the city.
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