Agency's move to Kaohsiung costs innocent taxpayers

This was the first time that an agency of the central government has been moved out of the capital and into Kaohsiung, our second largest city, which is home to a busy container port and numerous fishing operations.

However, shortly after Chang announced the big move, the Cabinet confirmed that more than 100 Fisheries Agency employees will have to be reimbursed an additional NT$20,000 a month for the next three years to help offset the costs of relocating to Kaohsiung.

Reasons for the additional stipend included the fact that many Fisheries Agency staffers will leave their spouses and children behind in Taipei, requiring them to travel back and forth whenever they get the chance.

In addition, the Fisheries Agency’s Taipei office will have to be retained because the agency will need to operate a liaison office to coordinate its activities with the central government.

This means that the government will not save the money it has been paying to rent the agency’s former headquarters, while it will have to shell out additional money to rent the agency’s new headquarters in Kaohsiung.

Reports have said that some NT$70 million to NT$80 million will have to be taken out of the central government’s budget in order to cover the expenses of the move.

Some Fisheries Agency staffers have told reporters that they will quit their jobs rather than move out of Taipei, where their families are long established and where their children attend school.

We wonder if the short-term political benefits gained from moving central government agencies out of the capital city justify the expenses being paid by taxpayers.

It is clear to see that government officials did not think through this reform before deciding to go ahead and implement it.

This reminds us of the ill-fated 1997 decision to scrap the Taiwan Provincial Government, which once exercised broad powers over the day-to-day government operations in most of Taiwan outside the cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung.

The move was made after politicians from the then-governing Kuomintang and then-opposition Democratic Progressive Party agreed to implement reforms for the sake of “boosting government efficiency.”

When the government shut down the offices operating in the Chung Hsing New Village, in central Taiwan, many seasoned provincial government officials chose to retire early or just quit their posts, rather than wait to see where they would end up getting transferred to.

As a result, agencies performing important government functions were deprived of able, experienced people whose services have been desperately needed.

In the meantime, many of the kinks that came up in the poorly planned reform have yet to be worked out, such as which government agencies should be responsible for taking over the functions of the former provincial government authorities.

At the time, we were told that the reforms were being implemented to avoid waste and overlap between provincial and central government authorities.

But since then, we have seen that the genuine reason for scrapping the provincial government was to further the goal of abandoning the Republic of China in favor of seeking outright independence for Taiwan as a state of its own.

The snafu surrounding the Fisheries Agency relocation shows that the lessons of the provincial government debacle have been completely lost on the leaders running our government today.

With all of the serious problems facing our rapidly declining fishing industry, the last thing our Fisheries Administration needs is to lose a sizable chunk of its budget money.

For example, the Fisheries Administration is charged with monitoring our high-seas fishing fleet for violations of international fishing quotas — a task that is going to be made more difficult after seasoned veterans abandon their jobs.

We never cease to be amazed at how President Chen and his administration seem not to care about the efficient operation of government in this country, and instead endeavor to make symbolic political statements through everything they do.

Kaohsiung is a wonderful and vibrant city and we certainly agree with residents of Kaohsiung who complain that the central government fails to pay enough attention to their needs.

However, by undertaking these actions without thinking about the practical consequences, our government has frivolously racked up expenses that will ultimately have to be paid by taxpayers all around the country.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email