To meet the goal of downsizing the number of civil servants from 180,000 to 176,000, government employees who opt for early retirement between July and December will receive a maximum of seven months’ salary on top of their pension, a Cabinet official said yesterday.
Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) Deputy Chairman Sung Yu-hsieh (宋餘俠) said the regulations stipulated in the amendment to the Provisional Statute on the Adjustment of the Functions, Businesses, and Organizations of the Executive Yuan (行政院功能業務與組織調整暫行條例) were expected to be approved by the Cabinet late this month.
To meet President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) election platform of restructuring governmental agencies to improve efficiency, the RDEC was close to finalizing an amendment to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法) that would help the Executive Yuan’s 37 agencies cut their workforce by by one-third by the end of next year, he said.
Pending deliberation was a plan to merge the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission (OCAC) with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the idea has met with strong opposition from overseas citizens whose population was estimated to be in the millions by the OCAC.
Another unresolved matter was whether to turn the Consumer Protection Commission into a business unit under the Executive Yuan.
Sung said the bill on the preferential retirement measure would be sent to the Cabinet for approval together with an amendment on the government restructuring plan after the two controversies are settled, which is expected around the middle of this month.
Under the proposal, civil servants, except for teachers and employees in public schools and state-owned enterprises, would qualify for the preferential retirement measure under three circumstances: having completed 20 years of civil service, having completed 10 years of service and reached the age of 50, or being a senior official who has reached the highest salary bracket for at least three years.
The Central Personnel Administration has proposed setting a ceiling for the total number of public servants working for the central government — including the five government branches and Presidential Office — at 176,000, down from 180,000, within six years.
The RDEC said it wished to see streamlining as early as 2011, provided the legislature approved the reform proposal by the end of this year.
Civil servants who apply for early retirement in June, or seven months ahead of the scheduled date, would receive seven months’ salary in extra pension. The extra pension given to civil servants who apply for early retirement by December would receive the equivalent of their salary for the remaining number of months in the year.
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
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
RSS