The Executive Yuan is to request the Legislative Yuan unfreeze all 1,584 frozen budget items, totaling NT$138.1 billion (US$4.25 billion), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said today.
The Executive Yuan would request each ministry, which are all facing different circumstances due to budget freezes, to submit budget unfreezing requests to the Legislative Yuan in a “submit all, unfreeze all” policy, Cho said to reporters prior to a meeting at the legislature.
Hopefully funds would be unfrozen as soon as possible, so that administrative agencies can function normally, he said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
These items can be divided into three categories with regard to their unfreezing procedures, Cho said.
The first category, including 1,162 items totaling NT$15.4 billion, can be unfrozen upon submission of a written report, he said.
The second, including 373 items totaling NT$36.6 billion, requires a special report to be submitted and reviewed before funds are unfrozen, he said.
The third, including 49 items totaling the most at NT$86.1 billion, are special frozen items with different requirements, he added.
Later responding to questions from legislators, Cho said that the Executive Yuan would request constitutional interpretations for both the general budget and the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法), as the legislature rejected the Cabinet’s reconsideration requests.
“We do not recognize these budget review procedures as legal or constitutional,” he said.
In addition, since a budget to cover 3 percent salary raises for military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers was cut, these funds would be reallocated from within the internal budget and dispersed next month, Cho said.
Additional reporting by Liu Wan-lin
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