The Constitutional Court yesterday accepted the Control Yuan’s petition for a constitutional judgement on this year’s central government budget, the Judicial Yuan said.
The Control Yuan said its total budget was NT$1.09 billion (US$36.42 million), of which more than NT$800 million would be for personnel expenses, but its budget for operational expenses was reduced from NT$240 million to NT$10 million, a 96 percent cut.
The Control Yuan filed the petition after it was forced to adjust and suspend several of its functions.
Photo: Lin Che-yuan, Taipei Times
The budget was promulgated on March 21, after lawmakers from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party rejected two proposals from the Executive Yuan urging the legislature to reconsider.
The cuts to the Control Yuan’s operational expenses go beyond what is reasonable and severely endanger its ability to carry out its duties, the branch said.
The budget cuts functionally abolish the Control Yuan and undermine the principle of a separation of powers, the branch added.
Department of Supervisory Investigation Director Yang Chang-hsien (楊昌憲) filed a petition for a constitutional judgement on March 24, asking the court to review the Legislative Yuan’s actions and invalidate the cuts retroactively to Jan. 1.
The court accepted the petition in accordance with Article 32 of the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), the Judicial Yuan said.
In other news, the Executive Yuan’s decision to reduce subsidies for local governments by 25 percent continued to be debated.
Local government support for the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$63.6 billion supplementary budget could be a solution, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday.
Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Cho as saying that the Legislative Yuan’s budget cuts, which totaled NT$207.6 billion, directly impact people and forced the Executive Yuan to adjust its expenditures.
KMT New Taipei City Council caucus secretary-general Wang Wei-yuan (王威元) and deputy secretary Huang Hsin-hua (黃心華) held a news conference yesterday to protest the Executive Yuan’s decision, calling on the government to not use vulnerable groups as political bargaining chips.
They cited Article 30 of the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法), which says that the amount provided to local governments must not be less than the budget it had the year before.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said he would submit a request asking the central government to reconsider, as the subsidies have already been approved for use in social welfare initiatives.
Additional reporting by Huang Tzu-yang
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
RSS