Legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday strongly opposed a plan by the Executive Yuan to relocate the Sports Affairs Council (SAC) and the Fisheries Agency to Taipei.
In separate statements, DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) and the KMT’s Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) urged the government not to waste taxpayers’ money after so much was spent to move the headquarters of the two agencies from Taipei to Kaohsiung less than a year ago.
Both Kuan and Huang represent constituencies in Kaohsiung City.
The Fisheries Agency was relocated to Kaohsiung City on Oct. 30 last year and the SAC was moved there on Feb. 1 this year. The relocation was part of the former DPP government’s policy of narrowing the north-south gap.
The DPP lost power in the presidential election on March 22.
The KMT-led Cabinet recently asked the legislature to withdraw the amendment under which the Fisheries Agency was relocated to Kaohsiung.
Meanwhile, the council has organized two public hearings in Kaohsiung and Taipei over the past two days to assess the possibility of moving its offices back to Taipei.
Kuan criticized the moves, saying they were aimed at thoroughly overturning the former government’s policy.
The gap between the north and the south would remain, and the hopes of the people in the south for an injection of resources into that area would also be destroyed, she said.
Huang said that when the Fisheries Agency was moved to Kaohsiung last year, 118 agency personnel were also relocated.
Each of them is entitled to a monthly subsidy of NT$20,000 and other benefits because of the relocation, she said.
If the agency is moved back to Taipei, the huge amount of taxpayers’ money that the government spent on the relocation would have been wasted, she said.
Kaohsiung City Director of Information Shih Che (史哲) also urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) not to scrap the DPP policy but to pay attention to public opinion.
It was reasonable to base the two organizations in Kaohsiung as the city is one of the country’s main fishing areas and it also accommodates a national sports training center, Shih said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
RSS