The Cabinet’s four-page budget report on a COVID-19 relief program is “crude,” the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) said yesterday, adding that a national vaccine task force should be created to ensure Taiwan’s access to new vaccines.
The TPP caucus received an Executive Yuan report dated Monday that describes the government’s plans for COVID-19 relief, TPP Legislator Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) told a news conference in Taipei, adding that the report was compiled at the party’s request during legislative reviews in May.
Citing the report, Chiu said that the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ NT$420 billion (US$14.75 billion) budget includes NT$1.7 million in personnel costs, NT$15.3 million in operational expenses and NT$170 million in subsidies.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
However, the report was just four pages long, and did not explain the purpose of the expenditures or itemize individual expenses, he said.
The pandemic is showing no sign of improvement in other countries and instead appears to have become part of the normal state of affairs, he said.
Should current trends persist, the pandemic would increase the strain on financial institutions, while the government’s measures to stabilize banks and aid debtors cannot go on indefinitely, Chiu said.
The government should exercise fiscal discipline and monitor banks’ liquidity levels to avoid a surge in bad debt, he said.
TPP caucus whip Lai Hsiang-ling (賴香伶) said that the party supported the relief program after making clear its expectation that the government would present a full account of it.
“However, our caucus has received an implementation report of a scant few pages,” Lai said. “I wonder if the optimism [the report] espouses is an accurate representation of reality.”
Businesses continue to lay off employees, despite subsidies, she said, adding that the Ministry of Labor should consider policies that would directly help workers through the Lunar New Year.
TPP Legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) said that the pandemic is expected to worsen over winter, but Taiwan’s relatively successful management of the virus means that the nation might be prioritized lower than Western nations in vaccine distribution programs.
Taiwan has not developed its own COVID-19 vaccine to date, Tsai said.
The government should create a national vaccine task force to boost support for domestic pharmaceutical firms involved in vaccine research, in addition to striving for foreign vaccines, she said.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas,” the US military said yesterday, as tensions between China and Taiwan raise concerns in Washington. US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the strike group entered the South China Sea on Saturday, the same day Taiwan reported a large incursion of Chinese bombers and fighter jets into its air defense identification zone near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). The US military said the carrier strike group was in the South China Sea, a large part of which
STRATEGIC MISTAKE: Beijing’s deployment of aircraft near Taiwan proves the ‘China threat theory’ that sees it attempting to destabilize the region, an analyst said China on Saturday and yesterday sent a record number of military aircraft into the nation’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in what analysts said was an attempt to flex its military might for US President Joe Biden. Thirteen Chinese warplanes flew into Taiwan’s southwestern ADIZ on Saturday and 15 entered yesterday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. On Saturday, eight Xian H-6K bombers, four Shenyang J-16 fighters and a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, entered the ADIZ, while yesterday there were two Y-8s, two Su-30s, four J-16s, six J-10 fighters and a Y-8 reconnaissance
DISPOSING MYTHS: A new constitution would better reflect reality, as the current one was drafted ‘in and for China,’ without the consent of Taiwanese, advocates said Independence advocates yesterday launched the Taiwan New Constitution Alliance to promote drafting a new, localized constitution. “This is a historic moment for Taiwan. Drafting a new constitution is the most important task Taiwanese face,” veteran independence advocate Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) said at the inaugural event in Taipei. “Although the Democratic Progressive Party is in power, its authority is based on the Republic of China [ROC] Constitution, which has no connection to Taiwan,” said the 95-year-old Koo, a former presidential adviser. “The historic task of drafting a new constitution depends on efforts by all Taiwanese,” Koo said. “A constitution for a sovereign, independent Taiwan
RSS