Tue, Jul 10, 2012 page3

• Ex-minister calls for smaller government

  The recent resignation of Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Minister Chu Chin-peng has once more thrust government reform into the limelight. In an interview with the ‘Liberty Times’ (sister paper of the ‘Taipei Times’) reporter Tzou Jiing-wen, former civil service minister Chu Wu-hsien said governmental reformation was incomplete and too many ministry-level agencies have been left untouched, adding that if the government does not downsize, the future prospects for the nation are very grim. This is the second part of the interview

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  Liberty Times: How would you evaluate the ongoing government reforms introduced by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration?

  Chu Wu-hsien (朱武獻): The problem with the current reforms is that government remains far too large.

  When we started reforming the government in 1987, there were about 20 ministries and committees in the government. When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidential election of 2004, it planned to shrink the government to a minimum of 22 ministries and committees.

  After some discussion and compromise, it was agreed prior to the DPP’s defeat in the 2008 presidential election that there would be 26 ministries and committees at most.

  When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came to power there were 29 government ministries and committees.

  The ROC Constitution was originally promulgated for the governance of 400 million people, 35 provinces and 12 cities under the jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan [in other words, it was a Constitution designed for China.]

  Despite the KMT’s relocation to Taiwan in 1949, the basic structure of government is still based on the ideals of the nation’s founding father, Dr Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), [which incorporates a National Congress, the five yuans and the Presidential Office].

  It is a good thing that the National Assembly has been frozen [following a Constitutional amendment in 2000], but there are still seven yuan-level government agencies, namely the five yuans, the Presidential Office, and the National Security Council (NSC) — the secretaries-general of the Presidential Office and the NSC are on the same pay-grade as the heads of the five yuans.

  These are the primary government agencies in charge of policy issues and they have to constantly negotiate with each other, but they all have too many high-level officials nominated by the president.

  Take, for example, the treatment our government gives a Control Yuan or Examination Yuan committee member. Not only are they on the same pay grade as ministers, each one has a government vehicle as well as a secretary, an office and an assistant.

  In addition, this huge organization also needs a large number of staff, adding to the cost for intra and inter-organization negotiations.

  As I constantly tell our civil servants, a civil servant of the Republic of China (ROC) has to be good at negotiating, at least three times better than a Japanese civil servant [because of the large number of people one has to go through].

  For example, the Judges Act (法官法), involves members from the Ministry of Civil Service, the Ministry of Examination and the Examination Yuan’s Civil Servants Protection and Training Committee, the Executive Yuan’s Central Personnel Administration (CPA) and the Secretariat and prosecutors under the Ministry of Justice affiliated with the Judicial Yuan.

  It took about 10 years for the act to be passed and if it were not for the scandal involving “dinosaur judges,” which caused the public to pressure the government to speed up the process, I do not know how much longer it would have taken.

  Meanwhile, there are currently 37 ministries and committees in the second-class government organization ranking. Although the Ma administration plans to shrink that to 29, I am of the opinion that 29 is still too many.

  My reason for holding this opinion is because the four committees and ministries under the Examination Yuan are untouched. Add those to Academia Sinica and Academia Historica under the Presidential Office, the National Audit Office under the Control Yuan and the National Security Bureau under the NSC — and even if the Ma administration’s reforms pass, there will still be 30 to 40 ministries and committees in total.

  If we compare our government with others around the world, then Taiwan clearly has the most ministry-level government organizations.

  According to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2009, the Canadian government had about 24 ministry-level organizations, New Zealand had 22, Japan had 11 and South Korea had 15, the same number as the US.

  OECD data show that China, even with its 1.3 billion population, only had 27 ministry-level organizations in 2008.

  Taiwan, on the other hand, has nearly 40 ministry-level organizations with a total population of about 22.5 million.

  Despite our relatively small population, our government organizations are large and burdened with high-level officials and president-nominated administrative officials. [For example], the Examination Yuan had 19 examination committee members, the Control Yuan has 29 Control Yuan Committee members and the Executive Yuan has about seven or nine ministers without portfolio.

  The [financial] cost of keeping just one presidentially nominated committee member is quite high, [not to mention the number of people who are actually on the payroll].

  Liberty Times: Do you have any specific suggestions for the Ma administration?

  Chu: When the DPP was in power, the Legislative Yuan asked for the total number of ministry-level agencies to be kept at 22. However, since the KMT’s return to power, is has exceeded that number by seven.

  The directors of the National Palace Museum and the Academia Historica are now also presidentially nominated minister-level officials, but as they are exempt from attending Executive Yuan meetings, they do not have the power to make policy decisions.

  In my opinion, these two units could easily be folded into lower level government agencies under the Ministry of Education; is there really a need for the National Palace Museum and Academia Sinica to be headed by a person with ministerial authority?

  There were also plans to combine the Executive Yuan’s CPA and the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics into the Executive Yuan, but now they are independent organizations under the jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan.

  The KMT has always been more lenient with itself and harder on others. When the DPP was in power, third-level government agencies were strictly regulated and capped at 50, but since 2010, the KMT had raised the cap to 70, which needs to be discussed.

  Take the Control Yuan’s committee members for example. Tasked with monitoring administrative personnel, the committee was originally designed for 445 people when the KMT ruled China. Now it has 29 members, each with the power equivalent to a minister.

  In my research I have found that most countries have just one individual monitoring administrative personnel, with at most three. Japan’s National Personnel Authority, which serves in the same capacity, is only staffed with three members. Conversely, the Examination Yuan Committee should only have three to five members.

  Even if the Control Yuan is an absolutely necessity [as stated in Sun’s separation of five powers], it does not need so many staff.

  It is understandable that each president feels the need to use vacant positions as some kind of political reward. However, under the current circumstance of national financial hardship, we should endeavor to save money from the small things and start slowly shrinking the size of the government.

  Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer

  Liberty Times: If the government’s structural problems cannot be solved, what would be the possible future long-term effects?

  Chu Wu-hsien (朱武獻): According to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior last year, we are faced with the situation that Taiwanese are having fewer and fewer children. On average, three people’s income goes toward supporting one elderly person, and in the future it will drop to two.

  If the government continues to maintain such a corpulent bureaucratic structure, it is essentially draining the resources of our children for its present survival, and if our children are denied a source of income, how will debts be paid off?

  For example, civil servants are supporting their retired parents with funds from the Public Service Pension Fund. When they retire, the fund must be financially balanced or else the national coffers will have to compensate to prevent a shortage of funds for their pensions.

  Also, if we have increasingly fewer children to support us, then what will happen? Financial imbalance is a very big problem that is looming over our nation.

  Liberty Times: Do you have advice you would like to give to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)?

  Chu:That would depend on Ma’s courage. He should not have the mindset that everyone has to have a governmental job; right now the annual financial gap runs to hundreds of billions of New Taiwan dollars.

  In the past, there were various ways for the government to plug financial gaps — selling off stock, offering public land for sale and living off the earnings of the central bank.

  The problem is that we have sold most of our stock and the amount of government-owned land is also dwindling as the government is only entitled to the buildings on top of the land.

  If we do not reduce personnel and trim excessive bureaucratic structures, where is the money going to come from?

  The nation is in debt and the interest on the debt is piling up, which makes the books increasingly harder to balance. The man in the office of president is finding it a tough place to be, or maybe he does not even worry about it and leaves it to the Ministry of Finance to concern itself with these issues; I do not know, but nonetheless we have a serious financial problem on our hands.

  Another very serious problem facing us is the demographic imbalance from decreasing birth rates and an aging population.

  These problems are inextricably linked, which is why the leader of the state must make moderate cuts to the governmental apparatus. As can be seen in other countries, these are the main reasons why they too are cutting down on governmental personnel.

  This country faces a very grim future if it does not face up to and resolve this issue.

  Liberty Times: What if President Ma feels that since he is exiting the political stage after he finishes his presidential term, none of this is of consequence to him?

  Chu: What I have been saying are my heartfelt suggestions. I think that Ma wants to leave his mark in history and not just quietly leave the stage. If this is so, then he needs to spend some time thinking about how to do his job properly.

  Unlike the Democratic Progressive Party, Ma’s party has the majority in the Legislative Yuan, and since he doubles as the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] chairman, he holds within his hands the powers to move both the legistlature and the party, putting him in a great position to make positive change for the country.

  The problem we face is a fundamental one: Everyone has children whom they need to look out for and I think it is time that Ma started taking into consideration the children and young people that will later inherit this country.

  Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
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