The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislative caucus yesterday criticized the Executive Yuan for spending up to NT$103 million (US$3.57 million) creating “propaganda” to influence public opinion after it recruited up to nine people to create memes.
The TPP made the claims at a news conference at the legislature in Taipei as Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) delivered a policy report to legislators.
TPP Legislator Kao Hung-an (高虹安) said that the Executive Yuan Department of Information Services allocated budgets of NT$29.7 million, NT$25.7 million, NT$24.5 million and NT$22.9 million from 2017 to this year respectively for public communications and labor procurement.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The successful bidders of communications and labor procurement projects in the past four years have been the same few firms, Kao said.
An additional NT$6.8 million was spent this year recruiting nine contract workers to create slogans and memes, she said.
Some of the slogans and memes contain content that contravenes administrative neutrality, and they were actually smear campaigns against opposition parties, several of which were posted on Su’s Facebook page, she added.
The Budget Act (預算法) states that policy advocacy in which the government has provided more than 50 percent of the funding should be clearly marked as an advertisement sponsored by the government, so the Executive Yuan should have clearly marked the slogans and memes, Kao said.
TPP caucus whip Lai Hsiang-ling (賴香伶) questioned the Executive Yuan’s procurement process, as the successful bidders were the same few companies, including one recruitment services company that won labor procurement bids in three consecutive years.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德) had promised to reduce the number of contract workers in government agencies when he was the premier, but while there was only one contract worker in the Department of Information Services at that time, there are now nine contract workers, Lai Hsiang-ling said.
In response, the Executive Yuan said that government agencies were looking to improve policy promotion by recruiting personnel with specialized skills.
Employees had been asked to create memes and slogans that would enable the public to better understand policies, while saving costs by subcontracting the work specialist firms, it said.
New slogans and memes would be sent to the legislature for review and the sponsoring agency would be clearly marked, it added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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