Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus deputy secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday said his caucus would propose legislation in the next session that aims to penalize officials who lie.
Lo made the remark after Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) denounced opposition parties for cutting and freezing the central government’s total budget.
KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers cut NT$93.98 billion (US$2.9 billion) from the central government’s general budget on Friday.
Photo: CNA
The legislature continued its budget review yesterday and today, and was projected to cut another NT$100 billion at least.
As agencies under the Cabinet have been claiming that the budget cut would affect social welfare, the KMT caucus would propose bills to introduce an “honest government act and lying offenses for officials,” Lo said.
“The DPP should explore the example of [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk. When [US president-elect] Donald Trump proposed the Department of Government Efficiency to restructure the government, he [Musk] proposed a US$2 trillion cut in budget. Has the US been destroyed?” he said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
In the past, former president “Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the budget cut should be 20 percent. A budget cut of 10 percent cannot make the government change; a cut of 20 percent can transform its structure,” he added.
The corruption case of Ultra Source’s (超思) egg imports squandered NT$500 million from the national treasury, while corruption in the Tainan solar energy project and Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) deficit cost the government at least NT$10 billion and NT$100 billion respectively, Lo said.
“The opposition parties strive to safeguard people’s wallets. How can we paralyze the government with just a 3 percent budget cut?” he said, adding that the government was spreading rumors and that officials were lying, because they would not be penalized.
“Although Constitutional justices protect the right of governmental officials to lie at the legislature, they do not ensure their right to lie about political affairs. We are exploring the possibility of proposing the legislation of the honest government act and lying offenses for officials in the next legislative session. Let the public decide whether the officials are spreading rumors and lying,” Lo said.
Separately yesterday, KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Szu-ming (林思銘) said it is lawmakers’ duty to review the budget and cut inefficient or inappropriately listed budget items.
The DPP government has long exploited budget items such as “operating expenses” and “media propaganda expenses” to fund “cyberwarriors,” wasting public funds without producing benefits, Lin said.
The KMT caucus strengthened its legislative supervision by freezing the budget, which is not equivalent to removing the budget, he said.
Agencies only have to report to the legislature on progress when a certain part of the budget has been spent, to ensure that taxpayers’ money were used to improve people’s livelihoods, instead of being used for political manipulation, Lin said.
The opposition’s budget cut proposals are not final, so ministries and departments should be more proactive in communicating and explaining their budget plans, he added.
TPP caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday said the central government’s total budget for this year reached a new high of NT$3.2 trillion.
The TPP caucus reviewed the budget and proposed a total cut of slightly more than NT$100 billion and denied the NT$100 billion budget to subsidize Taipower’s deficit, he said.
With these cuts, the Cabinet still has a budget of NT$2.9 billion, but Cho chose to incite the public by circulating biased information through administrative departments and state-level cyberwarriors instead of facing and solving the problem, Huang said.
If Cho is so incompetent that he does not know how to do his job with NT$2.9 billion in his hands, he should resign as premier instead of polarizing society and causing conflicts, he said.
Additional reporting by Lin Che-yuan
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
RSS