The long-stalled central government budget for the current fiscal year, including partial funding for a US arms procurement deal, was finally put on top of the agenda for Friday's plenary session after the pan-blue camp agreed yesterday to decouple it from the Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (中選會組織法).
The pan-blue dominated Procedure Committee agreed without objection that the budget bill, which has been listed behind the bill to amend the commission's law in the sequence of deliberation for more than half a year, would be the first item to be reviewed on Friday.
This means the budget bill will clear the legislature before it goes into recess on Friday.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for holding up the budget bill in a bid to get the Democratic Progressive Party to agree to the KMT's proposal to restructure the election commission to give it a pan-blue majority.
The KMT lawmakers' change of heart came one day after their party's presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma's appeal, however, stirred speculation that he and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) were competing for any credit due for ending the deadlock.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
On Jan. 19, the final day of the last legislative session, Ker quoted KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (
Soon after Ma made his appeal on Monday, a source from Wang's camp said that the speaker had already told Wu and Tseng last Friday that the KMT should delink the two bills.
"I told the KMT that the budget bill could not be delayed any longer," Wang said on Monday.
When asked by reporters yesterday about who should get credit for breaking the legislative logjam, Wang downplayed his role.
"[The U-turn] was to do with Ma. He deserves all the credit," Wang said after hearing that Wu had said "it's nothing to do with who should take the credit. Wang was also involved in the decision-making process."
Ker told a press conference yesterday that the KMT lawmakers might only pretend to let the budget bill through in a bid to demand the passage of the amendment to the election commission bill as a trade-off.
"There should be no preconditions for the passage of the budget bill. No unconstitutional bills should be allowed to pass the legislature," he said.
The Budget Act (預算法) states that the legislature should finish their review of the central government's budget bill one month before the start of the fiscal year -- or by the end of last November.
Meanwhile, not all budget matters are likely to be passed by the end of the day on Friday.
The NT$3.3 trillion budget for state-owned enterprises and governmental non-profit funds and the NT$77.3 billion special budget for public construction projects are still listed below the CEC bill on Friday's agenda.
DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (
Additional reporting by Flora Wang
Also see story:
Editorial: Don't thank Ma if budget bill passes
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS