A new budget law has prevented the central government from disbursing NT$34.5 billion (US$1.14 billion) to local governments, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, as heads of opposition-governed jurisdictions scheduled a meeting over funding for today.
The government has no choice but to withhold funding due to “unsolvable” problems and mistakes in the amended Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法), Cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party approved amendments to the legislation in March.
Photo: Taipei Times
The formula for calculating shares of the budget for special municipalities, as well as county and city governments, would leave the central government legally unable to distribute the total, Lee said.
The amendments would channel funding previously earmarked for central government programs to its local counterparts, without also transferring the responsibility for overseeing the projects, she said.
The changes made the private-sector profit, population and size of the 22 administrative regions factors to increase its budget, which most certainly would widen the urban-rural divide, Lee said.
The math issue lies in the inclusion by lawmakers of Taiwan’s outlying counties in a part of the law governing allocations in Taiwan proper, National Taipei University of Business professor of public finance and tax administration Huang Yao-huei (黃耀輝) told the Chinese-language Storm Media Group.
That means the denominator for calculating allocations increased to 22 from 19, resulting in a drop in revenues for each jurisdiction and hanging tens of billions of New Taiwan dollars “in the air,” Huang said.
The 16 KMT and TPP mayors and commissioners said that they would convene a news conference in Taipei today to comment on the drop in revenues for regions including Lienchiang and Yunlin counties.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said that the Executive Yuan informed local governments that subsidies planned in the previous year had been canceled and that they should expect a drop in subsidies.
The regulations governing local subsidies were changed from giving local governments funds that had been calculated by a formula to a discretionary decision by officials, Lu said, adding that the practice led to unfairness.
Kaohsiung, which has a smaller population than Taichung, received NT$130 billion in subsidies compared with the NT$20 billion earmarked for Taichung, she said.
The DPP government is used to picking political fights with the legislature, and has turned its attention to local administrations, she said, adding that the central government should change its ways following its defeats in the recall elections.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) are expected to attend today’s news conference, sources said.
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