Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers continued to give Premier Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh arrived at the Legislative Yuan around 9am yesterday, and went to the podium to carry out his briefing. However, before he could, KMT lawmakers started vociferously complaining about his policies regarding the Kaohsiung MRT project, saying that the government's decision to import and hire Thai laborers took away job opportunities for local laborers.
"It was you who decided to hire foreign laborers since you were the Kaohsiung City mayor back then," said Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), the KMT's Kaohsiung legislator. "Don't you think that by making that decision, you also took away job opportunities for our own people?"
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
In response, Hsieh said working on the Kaohsiung MRT was a dangerous job with small paychecks -- less than NT$30,000 per month. The Kaohsiung City Government decided to hire foreign laborers, because not enough local workers would accept job offers to work on the project.
"We cannot abandon the project just because we do not have enough manpower, can we? Hiring foreign workers was the only suitable way to solve that problem back then," Hsieh answered.
KMT lawmakers have been taking advantage of the Kaohsiung MRT workers riot to question and attack Hsieh ever since the new legislative session began last week. They asked their Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) colleagues to endorse a proposal to organize a special task force to investigate such scandals and asked the premier to apologize over the issue.
The premier said he was sorry about the riot, because it was the government's responsibility to take care of problems related to foreign workers. But he showed his support for the decision to hire Thai workers.
"I have no regrets and no apology for this because my fellow colleagues in the Kaohsiung City Government and I did not do anything wrong," he said.
In addition to the MRT issue, KMT Taoyuan Legislator Lin Cheng-feng (
"Some political enemies have taken advantage of this proposal and said that we are using it as a tool for the year-end elections. We need to do something to clarify the issue and let our people know that the proposal has nothing to do with politics. It is made for securing our homes," Hsieh said.
"According to the proposal that you submitted, a lot of counties, especially those ruled by the pan-blue, do not share any part of the proposal. That means there will not be any flood prevention construction for these counties. Is that fair?" Lin said.
"It is hard for me to believe it has nothing to do with politics if that is the case," Lin said.
Hsieh told Lin that the proposal is merely a rough plan.
"We will distribute this money to every county fairly after we evaluate each county's needs," he explained.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS