The budget for fiscal year 2019 to build a fleet of 60 missile-equipped 45-tonne fast-attack craft was yesterday cut by NT$200 million (US$6.48 million), from an initial NT$468 million, with lawmakers from across party lines saying that the navy should be more practical in its planning.
The funding cut came after a review of the navy’s budget by the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
At the committee’s meeting, Navy Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Lee Tsung-hsiao (李宗孝) said that design and testing of the fast-attack craft would begin next year, while preparations to produce the first four would not begin until 2021.
The production of new ships should depend on current needs, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said.
The navy has yet to provide a prototype for testing and simulation as it did with the earlier Tuo Jiang-class corvette, Chiang said, adding that the navy should not propose budgets for mass production without a prototype for trials and environmental tests.
The navy cannot guarantee that the total cost to produce the 60 vessels would be capped at the planned NT$31.6 billion, as it has not performed design and testing, the committee said.
Asked by KMT Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) how the navy would staff the vessels, Lee said that it would undergo a structural adjustment of personnel.
Following the retirement of ships from the amphibious landing branch, as well as minesweepers, the navy would have an excess of personnel to crew the new vessels, he said.
Unlike the Guang Hua VI fast-attack missile boat, the new vessels would conduct missions in various sea zones, he added.
Mass production plans would only be approved after the navy has conducted testing, the committee said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS