President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that the public can judge for themselves whether the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) had squandered the entire legislative session by not reviewing the general budget and passing only bills benefiting certain people or organizations.
Lai made the remarks before inspecting the Taipei Beimen Post Office ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, when he was asked about the two opposition parties repeatedly blocking bids to review the Executive Yuan’s general budget and special budget plans.
The KMT and TPP hold a majority in the legislature, yet they neither reviewed the general budget plan nor the special defense budget plan this past legislative session. Instead, they did the best they could to pass bills that would spare KMT Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恆) from serving jail time, allow CTi News to return to the cable TV system and enable the KMT to reclaim assets that it acquired through unjust means,” Lai said. “People can judge if this is reasonable.”
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Asked whether the Presidential Office and the Executive Yuan would not sign or countersign the controversial bills — as the Executive Yuan did with the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) last year — the president said the Cabinet has publicly stated that it would consult experts to handle this matter in a legal and constitutional manner.
“As president, I have no criticisms against Legislative Yuan Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜). I am only pleading with him to consider the long-term development of national security, the economy and public welfare, and facilitate the passage of the proposed general budget and special defense budget. This is the responsibility of legislators and the legislative speaker,” he said.
Yen was convicted of corruption for embezzling assistants’ salaries and was sentenced by the High Court to seven years and 10 months in prison. The sentence can be appealed.
TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said it is unfair to the public when the president of a country takes the lead in spreading false information.
Past amendments pushed by the Democratic Progressive Party — such as the decriminalization of the discretionary state affairs fund — are what constitute “tailor-made legislation for specific people,” he said.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said the Cabinet chose not to allocate a budget to raise the wages of the military, police and firefighters while at the same time urging the legislature to “rush the review and passage” of its budget proposals.
He likened the situation to a restaurant serving undercooked food and then blaming customers for eating too slowly.
Such a disreputable business should be rejected by all consumers, he said.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
RSS