Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that although the city’s digital stimulus vouchers had been used at a higher rate than expected, the total cost remained within budget, as city councilors across party lines criticized the program’s cost and the sudden rollout of vouchers that had to be used within three days.
Ko’s administration launched the first lottery for digital stimulus “Bear Vouchers” through the city government’s TaipeiPass (台北通) smartphone app in October last year, and in October this year held a second lottery for Bear Vouchers 2.0, which expired on Sunday.
Without prior notice, the city government on Friday gave out further vouchers worth NT$200 (US$6.51), called Final Bonus Bear Vouchers — for each TaipeiPass user who had registered for the second lottery in October — but they expired on Sunday.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Many city residents were happy to receive the vouchers, but some were frustrated as they found themselves facing long lines at contracted stores over the weekend.
City councilors across party lines criticized Ko for wasting money to please the public before he steps down as mayor, for the poor usage rates of the two previous stimulus vouchers and for possible overspending.
Taipei Secretary-General Chen Chih-ming (陳志銘) yesterday said that the city council had passed a NT$519 million budget for Bear Vouchers 2.0, meaning that a total of 5.19 million vouchers at NT$100 per voucher could be offered.
Photo: CNA
The usage rate for the initial Bear Vouchers was 70 to 75 percent last year.
The city government predicted that the rate would increase to 80 percent this year, estimating that about 4.3 million of the 5.32 million vouchers given out in October would be spent, Chen said.
It predicted that the usage rate would be only about 25 percent for the Final Bonus Bear Vouchers, as the usage time was only three days, so it gave out about 35.2 million vouchers on Friday, he said.
However, more than 2.34 million vouchers were used, and the total number of vouchers spent during the Bear Vouchers 2.0 lottery and the bonus lottery on Friday was about 5.87 million, 680,000 more than the 5.19 million vouchers approved in the budget, Chen said.
As 150,000 sports and hotel vouchers could not be transferred for other use, the excess spending totaled NT$83 million, or the equivalent of 830,000 vouchers, which would be paid for by the city’s second reserve fund, he said.
Ko said only about 1.21 million vouchers were used in the first 24 days of this year, while 23.4 million vouchers were used in three days, showing that city residents had become more familiar with using the digital vouchers, and he had underestimated their willingness to use the program.
He said there is still about NT$140 million in the city’s second reserve fund, so even if the vouchers’ usage rate was high, the cost would be covered and his administration would maintain fiscal discipline.
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