Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday ruled out calling a national meeting on inclement weather and water conservation following a series of devastating natural disasters.
Wu said he did not think a national meeting would resolve any problems, adding that the government’s disaster prevention efforts had shown some positive results.
“The key lies in everybody fully cooperating with the central government,” Wu said.
“Many lives can be saved if people evacuate when they are told to do so,” he said.
The impact of any natural disaster or man-made error can be minimized if both the central and local governments, as well as policy-makers and front-line workers, are sensitive to changes in the situation and are decisive in their actions, he said.
Since Taiwan has learned many painful lessons from natural disasters over the years, Wu said he believed it was most important to make the right decision at the right time.
The premier made the remarks in response to media inquiries about the possibility of calling such a meeting.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) wrote in its editorial yesterday that a responsible government should put aside partisan interests and invite experts and academics in meteorology, water conservation, geography, engineering and rescue and relief to discuss how to more effectively integrate and utilize limited resources and build useful flood prevention facilities.
On the matter of the Suhua Highway, which was severely damaged amid the heavy rainfall brought by Typhoon Megi last week, Wu said he expected an environmental impact assessment for a highway improvement project to be approved by the end of next month.
Wu dismissed allegations that decision-making on the project had been perfunctory, saying the administration decided in October last year to scrap the original plan to build a freeway and instead improve the quality of the existing highway.
He declined to speculate when work on the improvement project would begin, but emphasized that it was likely to proceed more smoothly and quickly than the original plan to build a freeway.
Wu said he understood why the former Democratic Progressive Party administration had decided in 2003 to build a freeway, but the plan had met strong opposition from environmentalists.
Their objections had halted the construction project, which was originally set to begin in 2007, he said.
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