Money-losing state firms may still pay out bonus: MOEA

But Liu Ming-chung, spokesman at the Commission of National Corporations under the MOEA also said that staff will still be entitled to the monetary award if the operating deficits result from carrying out certain government policies.

Liu made the remarks in response to a media report that the state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) has set aside NT$3.3 billion as a cash award to staff in its budget plan next year although the company is projected to incur a huge deficit of NT$47.9 billion.

The average bonus for each employee will be more than NT$100,000, equivalent to extra pay for two months.

Taiwan Water Co., also under the MOEA, has earmarked an amount of NT$772 million for bonuses despite a projected financial loss of NT$439.8 million.

The Taiwan Railway Administration under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has allotted NT$2.428 billion in spite of a predicted deficit of NT$9.767 billion.

Legislators of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) blasted the companies and the government for paying bonuses to staff at the expense of taxpayers.

Liu at the MOEA said there are certain rules for distributing performance bonuses as incentives for company employees.

He said there will be no bonuses for those at state companies with financial losses.

But there will be an exception for companies that experienced deficits mainly because they implemented major policies adopted by the government, he said.

Some employees at Taipower said it would be unfair to strip them of the bonus because the company's operating deficit actually arose from erroneous policies adopted by the government.

The previous DPP administration abruptly disrupted the construction work of nuclear power plant No. 4 during 2001-2002. The compensation to contractors and increased material costs caused by the delay caused Taipower an estimated loss of NT$400 billion.

The total cost for taxpayers would amount to around NT$500 billion when including the loss of power generation caused by the delay and the rising import costs for imported crude oil in recent years.

The huge loss has been spread into the annual financial statements of the company for several years. Taipower's projected loss for 2010 is listed at NT$26.83 billion.

Employees of Taiwan Water have complained that the company incurs financial losses mainly because the government repeatedly vetoed plans to raise water fees to reflect operating costs.

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

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email