The Cabinet yesterday approved an amendment to the Act Governing the Retirement of School Faculty (學校教職員退休條例) that raises the threshold for teachers and employees in public schools to apply for a monthly pension.
Under current regulations, public school faculty are eligible for retirement when they have served for more than five years and reach the age of 60 or when they have served 25 years.
Currently public school teachers and employees who have served more than five years but less than 15 years receive a lump sum payment, while a monthly pension is only granted to those who have worked for more than 15 years when they reach 60 or those who have served 25 years when they reach 50.
LONGER WAIT
Should the amendment pass the legislature, public school teachers will not be able to collect their pension as monthly installments until they have worked more than 25 years when they reach 60 or have served more than 30 years when they reach 55.
The proposed amendment also removes an article that gives an additional payment of 10 months salary to public school faculty who apply for a lump sum pension at the age of 55.
Revisions in the statute were aimed at saving the civil servant pension fund from a debt crisis as an increasing number of civil servants are opting for a monthly pension instead of a lump sum payment.
DEBT CELING
In other developments, a bill that would lower the central government’s debt ceiling by 1 percentage point of GNP, or NT$130 billion (US$4 billion), passed a preliminary review in the legislature yesterday.
At present, the Public Debt Act (公共債務法) sets the ceiling at 40 percent of average nominal GNP for the past three years.
The proposed amendment that cleared the legislature’s Finance Committee would reduce the limit to 39 percent.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) said the measure was intended to warn the government against wasteful spending.
Meanwhile, the amendment would also change the calculation method used to determine the debt ceilings of special municipalities, counties and townships.
SPECIAL MUNICIPALITIES
Under the current law, the debt ceiling for special municipalities is 5.4 percent of the average nominal GNP for the past three years. That for counties is 2 percent, and that for townships is 0.6 percent.
The proposed amendment would adjust the ceiling to 200 percent of the combined expenditure of annual and special budgets for special municipalities, 70 percent for counties and 25 percent for townships.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS