Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday criticized Premier Yu Shyi-kun for what she said was his lack of ability and courage in failing to take the responsibility for the grassroots financial reform mess.
Lu said Yu's mishandling of the affair has resulted in President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) becoming the scapegoat for the policy failure.
"The man with power just hid behind and left the responsibility for the blame on the man who does not have the power," Lu said.
She made the remarks while receiving a delegation of certified accountants from Taiwan and the US at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
Yu submitted his resignation to Chen last Friday, vowing to shoulder the responsibility for the grassroots financial reforms.
Chen visited Yu's residence Saturday night to persuade the premier to stay on the job to accomplish those reforms.
Although Chen expressed gratitude to Yu after the premier retracted his resignation on Sunday, Lu condemned Yu for what she said was his incompetence which had led to the president becoming the target of public criticism.
Lu said that the huge demonstration by farmers and fishermen in Taipei last Saturday had actually lost its focus and was a result of malicious political mobilization.
"Most of those farmers and fishermen do not oppose the government's plan to reorganize the credit departments of the farmers' and fishermen's associations, but they just took on the streets to urge the government to protect their rights in face of Taiwan's entry into the World Trade Organization," Lu said.
"But a handful of members, who control the credit departments and created the non-performing loan problems, manipulated those innocent people into boycotting the government's financial reforms," she said.
Lu said that the Executive Yuan had failed to properly evaluate the situation and ease grassroots-level anger.
Therefore, she said, Chen had no choice but to jump to the forefront to solve the crisis.
"Farmers and fishermen insisted on joining the protest because they are worried about their livelihoods," Lu said.
"If the Executive Yuan had properly communicated with the heads of local governments in dealing with these issues, the situation would not have gone so far."
"The media always blames the president for his policymaking. However, people should understand who is actually in charge of the Cabinet, including the Council of Agriculture," she said.
"The president finally stood on the front line because he could not allow the situation to worsen," she said.
Commenting on the search for new chiefs for the Council of Agriculture and Ministry of Finance, Lu urged the public to recommend the best candidates to Yu. She also urged Yu to recruit real talent instead of acquaintances.
"We can't accept the nomination of a Hakka as the head of the council just because the outgoing chairman is a Hakka," she said.
Lu said the next council chief should not only have expertise in agricultural economics but also have experience in international marketing .
Reacting to Lu's criticism, Yu told reporters he would "accept criticism from anyone" and would respect Lu's suggestions about the new Cabinet members.
"No one should blame the wrong person," the premier said. "The Executive Yuan should assume full responsibility."
"I also expect the media to give me more time to look for suitable candidates," he said.
Yu made the comments after a meeting of the DPP's Central Standing Committee. Yu told reporters that he and Chen had agreed that professional capabilities should be the prime factor in choosing Cabinet candidates.
(with additional reporting by staff reporter Lin Mei-chun)
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
The National Fire Agency on Thursday said a series of drills simulating a magnitude 8.5 earthquake would be held in September to enhance the government’s emergency response capabilities. Since earthquakes cannot be predicted, only by continuously promoting disaster prevention measures could Taiwan enhance its resilience to earthquakes, agency Director-General Hsiao Huan-chang (蕭煥章) said in a news release. The exercises would be held to mark annual National Disaster Prevention Day on Sept. 21, the aim of which is to test Taiwan’s preparedness and improve its earthquake resilience in case of a major temblor, Hsiao said. As part of those drills, an earthquake alert would
RSS