An act to recover wrongfully paid government pensions was yesterday passed into law after a 10-year push, with former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and prominent members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to be asked to return some benefits.
The legislature approved the Act on the Settlement of the Combination of Years of Service in Public Sector and Political Organizations (公職人員年資併社團專職人員年資計發退離給與處理條例), which when promulgated requires people paid a pension for the time they spent working for the KMT and non-governmental organizations to return the excess payments within one year.
The act is expected to affect 381 former ministers, government officials and teachers, including Lien, former KMT vice chairman Jason Hu (胡志強) and former Examination Yuan president John Kuan (關中).
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Kuan has been overpaid about NT$10.11 million (US$335,301) and is obliged to pay it back, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said.
Lien has been overpaid about NT$9.83 million; Hu has received NT$8.65 million; former Straits Exchange Foundation vice chairman Chiao Jen-ho (焦仁和) has received NT$3.73 million; former KMT vice chairman Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正) has received NT$1.09 million; former Judicial Yuan president Shih Chi-yang (施啟揚) has received NT$665,640; and former KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) has received NT$171,360, the DPP said.
Their retirement benefits are to be adjusted by deducting the number of years they worked for the KMT or other political organizations from the number of years they worked in the public sector.
The Ministry of Civil Service is to announce the exact amount each person owes the state.
However, the act stipulates a pension floor of NT$25,000 per month to ensure basic living expenses for retirees. Those whose monthly pension is below the floor after adjustments will receive NT$25,000 per month.
The 381 retirees combined their political party and public sector service to qualify for government pensions because, in 1971, the Examination Yuan approved a regulation to allow KMT officials who held public office to combine years served as a civil servant with years worked as a party official.
A similar regulation was enacted for officials of the World League for Freedom and Democracy, the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League, the National Development and Research Institute, the China Youth Corps, the Chinese Association for Relief and Ensuing Services and the Grand Alliance for China’s Reunification under the Three Principles of the People.
The regulations were abolished in 1987 and 2006 after government investigations determined that they violated the principle of equality.
However, KMT and party officials who had assumed government positions before the regulations were scrapped were still allowed to combine their years of service.
An investigation into the regulation was launched in 2005 during the administration of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), and the DPP put forward a draft bill in 2007 to eliminate the practice, but the bill failed to pass the KMT-dominated legislature.
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