Trumped-up claims by the National Development Council that the government has achieved 270 of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 414 policy proposals does nothing to counter Ma’s image as an ineffective president, opposition legislators said on Sunday.
The council recently reported that Ma’s administration has implemented more than 98.3 percent of proposals from his presidential campaigns and time in office.
The council said 65.2 percent of the policies had been completed, while 33.1 percent being implemented have seen some success.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators said that the report contained multiple repetitions and was trumped-up, adding that removal of repetitions would give the administration slightly more than 300 policies.
The allocation of NT$30 billion (US$963.1 million) for the tourism industry development fund alone constituted three proposals out of the 414, legislators said.
Others, such as direct flights across the Taiwan Strait, free education for children under five, tax cuts for kindergarten fees and parents keeping 60 percent of their salaries during parental leave each counted for two to four proposals, they said.
The cross-strait service trade agreement — widely criticized for its opaque negotiation — had also been listed as an “important” achievement, despite being stuck in the Legislative Yuan pending approval of the draft act to monitor cross-strait agreements and being repeated twice in the list.
While campaigning, Ma said he would maintain defense spending at 3 percent of GDP if elected, but his administration reached that level only in 2009, the legislators said.
The administration’s defense spending from 2010 to last year was 2.98 percent, 2.69 percent, 2.7 percent, 2.7 percent and 2.48 percent of GDP respectively, the legislators said, adding that defense spending this year would account for just 2.13 percent of the nation’s GDP.
Despite the figures proving that Ma’s administration failed to deliver on his promises, the council’s report nonetheless marked the policy as “achieved,” legislators said.
DPP Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said that the trumped-up claims of the Ma administration’s achievements would not turn the tide for Ma, who Taiwanese see as an ineffective president.
Council officials said that defense spending in 2009 and 2010 reached 3 percent and 2.98 percent respectively, adding that the core criterion of the policy had been met.
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