trol one of its top priorities, as it directly affects the people's lives and property. Siew made the remarks to reporters on the sidelines of a Taiwan-Japan forum held by the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies.
He said he had inspected flood-devastated areas in Kaohsiung County's Cishan and Meinong townships a day earlier in the wake of Tropical Storm Kalmaegi and found that the flood control projects along three major rivers in the southern county lacked coordination and integration -- mainly because of a budgeting problem.
Restricted by requirements that the central government's NT$116 billion flood control budget be allocated evenly over eight years starting from 2006, the flood-control projects along the rivers in Kaohsiung County can only be carried out section by section, Siew said.
"We need to treat each river's flooding problems swiftly and as a whole," he said, suggesting that the government needs to reconsider the current budgeting system.
"The central and local governments must cooperate closely in coping with flooding. This is one thing we have learned from the flood disaster this time," Siew said.
Tropical Storm Kalmaegi did virtually no damage to the two typhoon-prone counties of Hualien and Yilan when it swept across northern Taiwan last week. The excessively large amounts of moist air outside the storm's radius brought torrential rains to central and southern Taiwan and caused serious flooding.
According to official statistics, the flooding has resulted in 18 deaths, with eight people still missing, while agricultural losses have climbed to nearly NT$740 million (US$24.39 million).
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