The Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee unfroze all of the Ministry of Culture’s budget today, making it the first ministry to have its budget entirely unfrozen.
Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) met with the committee today and was optimistic about the members’ willingness to unfreeze the budget.
“I think our relationship with the Education and Culture Committee members has been quite pleasant... I do not feel much stress,” Li told reporters before the meeting.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Li said that 30 percent of the ministry’s budget had been frozen, affecting operational expenses such as utilities and cleaning, to international contracts and salary disbursements for affiliated institutions, like national museums.
If the budget is not unfrozen, operations would be unable to continue after August, he said.
Li also posted on Facebook yesterday, saying he hopes everyone can work together to help the ministry unfreeze its budget.
The ministry’s total budget for this year was originally set at NT$29 billion (US$957 million).
The committee first cut NT$20 million from the budget and froze another NT$500 million.
However, during the Legislative Yuan’s review of the central government budget in January, it cut NT$1.1 billion of the ministry’s budget and froze another 49 items, amounting to more than NT$3.44 billion.
Although the part of the budget that was cut cannot be restored, the ministry sought to unfreeze what it could, and today became the first ministry to entirely unfreeze its budget.
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