Infrastructure Plan Bill Reported Out of LY Committee

  Infrastructure Plan Bill Reported Out of LY Committee

Source: United Daily News & China Times

April 27, 2017

The Legislative Economic Committee passed the initial review of the bill entitled “Special Statute Governing the Forward-Looking Infrastructure Plan” yesterday amidst chaos.

During the review session, the Kuomintang (KMT) legislators continued the delaying tactics employed last Monday to thwart the review process with a relay of remarks, expressing their views one by one in a bid to block legislative proceedings.

However, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) unexpectedly introduced a motion to “stop discussion.” The next minute, a legislative staffer started to read out the bill article by article. The move riled the KMT legislators. KMT legislator Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟), in a fit of rage, lifted up a desk in an attempt to hit the rostrum, while KMT legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) splashed coffee and water in a show of protest. After the entire bill had been read out, the committee co-convener Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) ignored the “objections” chanted by the opposition parties, announcing that the committee review of this bill was completed and it could then be reported out of the committee to the LY plenary session without any further caucus-to-caucus consultations. The committee review took only 20 minutes to complete.

KMT caucus whip Wang Yu-min (王育敏) voiced her objections that the KMT caucus would not recognize the validity of the review session as Chiu violated the rules of order and ignored the protests from the opposition parties.

In addition, during the DPP Central Standing Committee yesterday, President Tsai Ing-wen called into question the persuasiveness of the information concerning the Forward-Looking Infrastructure Plan on the official website of the Cabinet. Tsai said that people needed to know and understand the infrastructure plan’s purpose and goals as they would spend NT$880 billion (approx. US$29.19 billion) on it.

Premier Lin Chuan stepped into the firing line, holding a press conference at 11 a.m. today with pertinent government officials, including Ministers of State without Portfolio, and Hochen Tan (賀陳旦), the Minister of Transportation and Communications, to explain the budget, ideas and goals of the infrastructure plan.

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