Ministers and the heads of the nation’s government offices yesterday reacted to news of the legislature’s historic budget suspensions with condemnations and complaints, saying that the cuts would hurt policies, personnel and disadvantaged Taiwanese.
Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) told a news conference that the Coast Guard Administration might not be able to pay shipbuilders after lawmakers suspended large swathes of the council’s budget.
The Legislative Yuan’s budget slashed NT$1.07 billion (US$32.65 million) from the council’s budget and suspended another NT$1.24 billion, the steepest decrease of its budget in OAC history, she said.
Photo: CNA
“We cannot put this on tab,” she added.
The Coast Guard Administration serves a vital national security role that requires significant amounts of funding for ship maintenance, repair and construction to keep up with China, Kuan said.
“We were already falling behind our adversary even if proposed budget increases had been approved, and now we for sure would not be able to stop them,” she said.
Writing in a social media post, the Ministry of Labor said the legislature’s cuts to its budget would cause a litany of woes, including difficulty paying civil servants and maintaining the government’s basic functions.
The legislature deleted or suspended NT$28 million for small and medium-sized enterprises to pay for child care leave, NT$157.8 million to pay 400 ministry employees, and NT$10.6 million for utilities, as well as the building and maintenance of digital systems.
Legislators additionally froze 60 percent of the ministry’s budget that was earmarked to inform the public about workers’ economic relief loans, labor insurance, unemployment benefits, childbirth subsidies and industrial safety, it said.
Separately, the Presidential Office distributed a letter to employees apologizing for not handing out traditional Lunar New Year gifts and bonuses due to the legislature’s budget cuts.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) was cited by Central News Agency as saying in the document that President William Lai (賴清德) regretted not being able to pay civil servants bonuses for their hard work.
The legislature slashed or suspended more than NT$200 million from the office’s budget, or about 70 percent of the allocation the government had proposed.
These included the discretionary funds earmarked for gifts and cash bonuses to government personnel and underprivileged children for the Lunar New Year holidays, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, Peng said.
A Presidential Office employee speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that presidents typically pay workers Lunar New Year holiday bonuses at the beginning of the year.
Presidential Office workers felt aggrieved despite expecting that the opposition parties’ budget bill might mean the loss of their bonuses, the employee added.
Every president from Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to Lai has made use of the discretionary budget to buy products from charities, sources said.
The Taipei Autism Children Welfare Foundation, the Garden of Hope Foundation and the Eden Social Welfare Foundation were among the charities that received contracts for furnishing gifts last year, they said.
The president’s gift list recipients include the civil servants assigned to the Presidential Office, the military police’s 211th battalion, the Taipei City Police Department’s 1st and 2nd Zhongshan Precincts, 242 elementary schools in indigenous-majority communities and 400 shelters for people with disabilities, they said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
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
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