Despite President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) remarks that now is not the right time to assign blame for mass flooding in southern Taiwan from Typhoon Fanapi, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday continued trading accusations over the disaster.
Saying that the DPP was Taiwan’s ruling party for eight years and has governed in Kaohsiung for the past 12 years, KMT Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) of the DPP should not shift blame to the central government and should instead focus her attention on reconstruction.
“Chen’s comments that the central government should take 80 percent of the responsibility for the drainage construction in Kaohsiung only frustrate Kaohsiung residents more and show her lack of a sense of responsibility,” Su said.
Chen made the comment in response to criticism by KMT Kaohsiung City councilors who faulted the municipal team’s disaster relief work and drainage system design after the typhoon.
Arguing that the central government has devoted full efforts to the relief and reconstruction work in the aftermath of the flooding, Su yesterday said Chen should join efforts with the central government in the reconstruction, rather than shifting her responsibility.
DPP officials, on the other hand, insisted the blame does not lie with the Kaohsiung City Government.
One day after the flooding, KMT legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) accused Chen of placing her own re-election bid first and the safety of residents second — after showing documents that suggested her administration spent part of its water treatment budget on municipal promotions.
Chiu yesterday said the flooding was caused by human error, alleging that the city government neglected water treatment issues for years and questioning whether it had dredged city ditches prior to the typhoon.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said Chiu’s accusations took information out of context.
Chiu “played around with the numbers and is trying to connect two unrelated things,” Huang said.
According to the DPP caucus, promotional funding was drawn from a budget for human resources.
Kaohsiung City officials said the misunderstanding arose because the city government disbanded its public relations office in July at the request of the KMT-led city council. Instead, it takes its promotional funding from various city branches.
“Everything was done according to the letter of the law,” said Hsu Li-ming (�?�), director-general of the city government’s Information Office. “Not a cent was drawn from the water treatment engineering budget.”
Huang said another report issued by the National Auditing Office highlighting deficiencies in Kaohsiung City’s water treatment system, made public by Chiu on Tuesday, showed that KMT-administered Taipei City had even more unresolved issues.
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that the central government should play a bigger role in managing flood prevention.
“Every time we see a flood like this happen, central and local governments are always unclear about their responsibilities,” she said. “But it is evident that only the central government has the power and funding to effectively handle the situation.”
At a separate setting yesterday, Chen said she did not mean to deflect responsibility with her remarks on Tuesday.
“I never thought to shirk my responsibility,” Chen told a press conference as she offered an apology to Kaohsiung residents for their suffering from the flooding.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS