The Cabinet has decided to establish a branch office in Chiayi City to further enhance the administration’s services in southern Taiwan, a government source said yesterday.
After the number of special municipalities was increased to five in 2010, the workload of the Executive Yuan’s Southern Taiwan Joint Services Center in Greater Kaohsiung increased tremendously, necessitating the central government’s establishment of another office in the south to boost its services in that part of the country, Minister Without Portfolio Lin Junq-tzer (林政則) said.
The Chiayi Joint Services Center is scheduled to become operational on July 1, Lin said.
The proposal to establish the new office, however, has drawn criticism from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). DPP legislators Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) and Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) lambasted the Cabinet, saying the government “has gotten its priorities all wrong” by planning the new office, while ignoring its duty to narrow the north-south gap as well as that between rich and poor and to jumpstart the domestic economy and solve other more pressing issues.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) dismissed the criticism from the DPP lawmakers.
Lin Kuo-cheng said the establishment of another Executive Yuan office in the south was important because mutual understanding and communication between the central government and southern Taiwanese have been lacking since most of the southern cities and counties are administered by the DPP.
Another Cabinet office would help dispel any misunderstandings and strengthen communication between the administration and people in the south, he said.
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