The review of a draft act on the government’s Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program was yesterday stalled as a plenary legislative session saw extended debates with opposition parties demanding that the bill be re-examined.
A cross-caucus negotiation was called immediately after the plenary session began, and the New Power Party (NPP) demanded that the draft act be returned to a legislative committee for reconsideration and that Premier Lin Chuan (林全) and the Cabinet formally report on the infrastructure program to the Legislative Yuan.
The requests were seconded by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP).
Photo: CNA
NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that a formal report by the premier is necessary because it is the Cabinet that should answer for the costly projects, not the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
The KMT caucus demanded that a feasibility assessment of all the projects be completed before a legislative review.
The DPP refused to return the bill for another round of committee discussions, as it plans to have the bill passed before the end of the extraordinary session tomorrow.
Following hours of cross-caucus negotiations, Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), in an unprecedented move, approved a question-and-answer session for today’s cross-caucus negotiations.
During the session, party caucuses would be able to pose questions to the Cabinet before a clause-by-clause review of the draft act.
The negotiations are scheduled to start at 8:30am, with the NPP, the PFP and the KMT taking turns to question ministers over the program.
“There will still be room for negotiation and ministers would be present at the negotiation for questioning for first time in history,” Su said.
The measure is to make up for the lack of a full legislative debate of the draft act, because it received a committee review on May 15 without its details being debated as the DPP had the bill read out while the KMT caucus was seeking to disrupt the proceedings.
“The draft forward-looking act is not unmodifiable, and changes can be made in terms of construction projects and budgeting,” DPP caucus chief executive Yeh Yi-chin (葉宜津) said.
Meanwhile, during yesterday’s negotiations, KMT legislators occupied the podium in the afternoon to pre-empt the resumption of the legislative session.
KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) said that the caucus “had their sleeping bags ready” for an overnight occupation of the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan to stall the review of the draft.
Su criticized the KMT caucus, saying the party had broken a cross-caucus agreement of abiding by meeting procedures.
“Who can still believe in the KMT’s honesty? You [the KMT] should swallow your words and apologize to the public,” Su said.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
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
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 —
RSS