After nearly 20 hours of continuous voting, the Legislative Yuan early this morning passed the second reading of this year’s central government budget, with record-high cuts and freezes.
The legislature was to reconvene at 1pm today to complete the third and final reading of the budget.
Results of the second reading are still being reviewed to calculate the exact amount of budget cuts and freezes.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The legislature began reviewing the budget on Friday last week, beginning with the general provisions section.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party legislators voted together to cut or freeze large parts of the general budget for various central government agencies.
The real challenge is just beginning, Democratic Progressive Party caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
This marks the greatest amount of budget cuts and freezes in history, and the exact figures still need to be calculated, Wu said.
There were many unreasonable and rough proposals, including misspellings of government agencies and proposing to cut more than the initial budget allocated, Wu said after the 20-hour session.
The review process was incredibly rushed, as legislators only received the information for many proposals immediately before voting, she said.
Although the second reading has finally been completed, with such rough proposals, calculating the exact budgets would be challenging, Wu said.
It remains uncertain whether these calculations could be completed before the legislature reconvenes this afternoon, she added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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