The Control Yuan on Monday ordered government agencies to review and propose solutions for the issues of pension reform and an aging police force, which has led to an imbalance in supply and demand, and a decline in police personnel numbers.
An investigation launched by Control Yuan member Chang Kuei-mei (仉桂美) showed that two changes to pension rules enacted in 2011 and last year led to an increase in officers aged 50 or older from 6,559 in 2015 to 14,039 as of October.
An increase to the voluntary retirement age and a pension cut have led to police officers retiring en masse or delaying retirement plans, Chang said.
There are three types of civil servant retirement in Taiwan — voluntary, of-age and medical.
Voluntary retirement is for those who reach the age of 60 and have worked in civil service for at least five years or in the vocation for at least 25 years, the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) states.
If their agency is reorganized or downsized, civil servants can apply for voluntary retirement if they have held the position for at least 20 years; they have held the position for 10 to 20 years and are at least 55; or they have worked for three years at the highest pay grade of their particular job and are and are at least 55, the act says.
Due to increases of the retirement age, the average age of police officers is 42, with those aged 46 or older constituting 36 percent of the national police force, Chang said.
The police force has a supply and demand issue, with insufficient new officers largely due to recruiting being unable to keep up with the retirement rate, she said.
The government stepped up recruiting after a shortage of officers in 2004, but it failed to end the measures in 2016 when retirement rates started falling, Chang said.
In 2015 and 2016, officers taking voluntary retirement dropped from 3,080 to 1,818, she said, adding that pension reforms enacted in July last year prompted volunteer retirement to fall from 87.05 percent in 2015 to 70.31 percent last year.
The Ministry of the Interior, the National Police Agency and the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration should conduct reviews and analyses of how pension reform is affecting the national police force, as well as offer mid and long-term solutions for officer supply issues, the Control Yuan said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
RSS