Lawmakers yesterday finalized negotiations on planned pension reforms for retired military officers and non-commissioned officers, and resolved to send 15 amendments on which no consensus was reached to a vote today.
The disputed amendments center on whether the 18 percent preferential interest rate for some savings accounts of retirees should be phased out, the starting income replacement rate, the eligibility for family members of deceased officers and non-coms to receive benefits and the conditions for splitting pensions in the case of a divorce.
The caucuses agreed to advance those amendments on which consensus had been reached to a second reading at a plenary session.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
To offset a shortfall in the pension fund for military retirees as a result of the government downsizing the military, the four caucuses agreed to assign the Veterans Affairs Council to budget NT$100 billion (US$3.31 billion) in 10 years from the amendments’ promulgation.
The caucuses agreed the council is to budget no less than NT$20 billion every two years over the course of that period.
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said that he granted a request by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus to assign 20 legislators to speak on the disputed amendments before they are voted on today.
Photo: CNA
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the New Power Party and the People First Party caucuses would each appoint two members to speak, Su said.
The negotiations had a rather “cordial” undercurrent, Su said, who said he hoped that each caucus would take some time to consider whether further consensus could be reached before going into today’s plenary session.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the DPP had anticipated that proposals regarding the starting income replacement rate, the 18 percent preferential interest rate and the portion of salaries to be allocated monthly for the pension fund would have to be put to vote.
He called on the KMT caucus not to filibuster, and refrain from quarrelling over the less controversial amendments scheduled to be voted on today to “set a good example” and change the legislature’s culture.
Asked why members of the KMT caucus did not sign the resolutions reached during the negotiations, KMT caucus secretary-general Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said the caucus’ stance is not to endorse “the DPP’s pension reform.”
However, it retracted some of its motions regarding less contentious draft articles during the negotiations, and would respect the resolutions going into today’s vote, Lee said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERs IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS