The Legislative Yuan yesterday failed to reach a decision on whether power rate hikes next month should be suspended after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus raised a motion to put the issue to cross-caucus negotiations.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Friday last week announced that electricity rates would increase by 3 to 25 percent from Monday next week to September.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucuses on Tuesday raised separate motions to freeze the rate hike and to discuss the matter yesterday.
Photo: CNA
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has repeatedly reassured the public that Taiwan would not suffer from a power shortage and that the government would not hike prices, yet the nation has seen multiple price increases over the past few years, KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) said yesterday.
The ministry’s decision to raise power rates next month would be the most significant, as it is expected to affect 13.4 million households nationwide and could presage another swell in commodity prices, he said.
The public is shouldering the cost of the DPP government’s insistence on pursuing wrong-minded power policies, and the KMT is resolved to stymie the government’s unilateral decisions with a proposal to freeze rate hikes and a motion to amend the Electricity Act (電業法), giving the legislature power to ratify rate hikes, he said.
TPP Legislator Chane Chi-kai (張啟楷) said that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) used to be a model for state-owned businesses, but a lack of reforms over the years has resulted in the company’s ballooning debt burden, which should not be passed on to consumers through tariff hikes.
The TPP caucus demanded that Taipower submit a comprehensive report to the legislature’s Economics Committee on the company’s plans to improve its financial situation, and that all attempts to raise prices be relegated to the back burner before the report is completed, he said.
DPP Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said that suspending the planned hikes now would be equivalent to the public subsidizing others who use more power.
“That is even more unreasonable,” Hung said.
DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said that legislative powers should not overlap or supersede administrative powers, adding that the opposition parties’ proposals could “never be accepted.”
Accepting such demands would hamstring the sustainable operations of Taipower, Wu said, adding that the DPP caucus’ proposal to put the issue to cross-caucus negotiations would prevent unreasonable proposals from taking effect immediately.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its