Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday instructed all agencies with frozen budgets to prepare relevant data to appeal the budget freezes so that the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan could jointly resolve issues obstructing the government budget review.
Legislative Yuan Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) said that the Executive Yuan should not ask for a budget review, but should instead make a list of agency budgets which would be increased or decreased when the two met at a conference headed by President William Lai (賴清德) on Monday.
Han also pledged to complete reviews of the budgets and forward them to the Executive Yuan before the weekend.
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said that while the premier is legally empowered to request budget increases or decreases, the speaker would have to introduce the motion during a cross-caucus negotiations while the budget is being reviewed.
This is standard procedure and does not require the president meeting with the heads of the five branches of government to negotiate a resolution, she said.
Cho said that Han’s solution to the problem took time and did not resolve the difficulties facing the administrative branch, adding that he hoped the Legislative Yuan would also deliver a solution alongside the budget to ensure that budgetary problems would not affect the government.
Cho said he has instructed all agencies to prepare relevant data to defend their budgets and hopes the Legislative Yuan would unfreeze the budgets within a month to prevent the government from being hobbled.
Citing the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Lee said several major hurdles have prevented the Executive Yuan from resolving the issue, as Han has suggested.
There is a discrepancy in the number for total annual expenditure; some funding cuts have depleted the original budget; the demand that the Executive Yuan slash a further NT$63.65 billion (US$1.94 billion) from the budget, which the Executive Yuan is unable and cannot legally do; cuts targeting specific agencies that make their jobs harder; questionable restrictions imposed on companies participating in government procurement bids; and the freezing of funds for the Council of Indigenous Peoples was legally questionable, Lee said.
The DGBAS said that disproportional funding cuts, compared with previous years, would make it difficult for government agencies to operate efficiently and also restrict funding flexibility for the agencies, she said.
Separately, the Presidential Office said that, due to the reduction in funding, it is no longer offering weekend and holiday tours of the premises.
The decision is effective until the funding for such events has been unfrozen, the Presidential Office said, adding that it would assess whether to relaunch weekend and holiday visits, or whether further restrictions on regular visits would be necessary.
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