The Local Government Act (地方制度法) should be amended to ban city and county councilors from “recommending” budget allocations, civic groups said on Saturday, adding that most “recommended allocations” are used for pork-barrel projects and political patronage.
“‘Recommended allocations’ have already become an electoral tool to tie down voters using patronage — rather than serving a councilor’s real recommendations for local infrastructure,” Congress Watch Foundation chairman Yao Li-ming (姚立明) said.
While national and local legislative bodies are in theory only empowered to cut or freeze budgets drafted by their respective executive branches of government, there is a long history of local governments granting councilors special funds,” he said, adding that only Taipei has abolished the practice.
“This originally served as a way for local governments to buy off councilors,” he said, adding that with the exception of Kaohsiung, most local governments have ignored Directorate -General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics directives to publish figures on all “recommended allocations” for fear of sparking a backlash from local councilors.
“If you do not obey the central government’s directive, your budget will not be cut — but councilors can give you a hard time, so why create trouble?” he said, adding that amendments to the Local Government Act were necessary to force compliance.
Kaohsiung Civil Servant Citizen Watch president Chen Ming-pin (陳銘彬) said that while Kaohsiung had abolished individual councilor allocation “quotas” after publicizing fund usage, his groups investigation had found that more than 70 percent of funds continued to be used for questionable “non-urgent” projects.
Education appropriations made up the majority of funds allocated based on councilors recommendations, creating an allocation of school funding, he said, citing minimal guaranteed funding for individual school libraries, with most book-buying funds allocated based on councilor recommendations.
“It is really unreasonable, some principals are better at speaking with councilors, so they get more resources, while those who do not can end up with no subsidies at all,” he said.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
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