President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday promulgated the budget for this year and amendments to the budget allocation act, after the legislature on Wednesday last week rejected the Cabinet’s request to reconsider the bills, the Presidential Office said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party lawmakers, who have a combined majority in the legislature, cut and froze significant parts of this year’s central government budget, and passed amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) to allocate a larger share of government revenue to local governments.
The Executive Yuan has warned that the cuts would seriously affect government operations and be unevenly carried out, while the amendments to the revenue allocation act would lead to unfair outcomes and an imbalanced distribution of government funds.
Photo: CNA
The Cabinet requested a review of both proposals, but it was rejected by the Legislative Yuan last week.
In an interview prior to a general policy meeting on Thursday, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that budget cuts affect all constitutional institutions except the Legislative Yuan.
The Control Yuan has announced plans to seek a constitutional interpretation and potentially request a temporary injunction.
All the constitutional institutions impacted by the budget and new fiscal reality would act in alignment with constitutional principles and coordinate their responses, Cho said.
The Executive Yuan would also consult with legal experts on further research, he said.
Control Yuan Department of Supervisory Investigation head Yang Chang-hsien (楊昌憲) is to submit a petition for a constitutional interpretation, the branch said yesterday.
The opposition’s budget cuts to the Control Yuan were a “political retaliation,” Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday.
“Their purpose is clear. Since they are unhappy that Control Yuan investigations are affecting them,” they slashed the budget to make the branch disappear, Lee said.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
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