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EDITORIAL:
Responsibilities must be acted upon
Politics cannot function well without responsibility and there has been a
gradual erosion of this element in Taiwanese politics, with the level of
responsibility decreasing steadily under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九)
administration.
On Friday night, the administration demanded the legislature hold a provisional
session this week to vote on a bill that would allow the import of beef
containing residue of the livestock feed additive ractopamine after the
legislative session ended earlier that day without a vote on the issue.
The decision, made in a three-hour meeting between the Presidential Office, the
Executive Yuan and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is the latest attempt by
the Ma administration to ask the KMT legislative caucus to execute government
policy and pass the bill despite widespread opposition.
The legislature has been paralyzed for a week over the pan-green camp’s protest
against a vote on the bill, and the provisional session — which is to deal
solely with the beef issue — is likely to spark another round of conflict
between the two camps and end without any progress being made.
Ma has come under fire for interfering with legislative affairs by asking the
KMT caucus to pass the bill by the end of this legislative session. However,
both the Presidential Office and the Executive Yuan avoided taking
responsibility for this by saying that the provisional session was proposed by
the caucus, and that the government would be supportive of the caucus’ proposal,
as if it had not been their decision.
Besides stalling the bill on US beef imports, the malfunctioning legislature
also failed to handle many other major bills such as the review of National
Communications Commission nominees and the capital gains tax proposal. Only 15
bills were passed in this legislative session, the lowest number in 17 years.
With the nation paying a steep price for a paralyzed legislature, the only
apology offered by the Ma administration was one put forward by Legislative
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who apologized for the poor record in the session
and called for rational policy debates. Ma, who should work to solve the
deadlock and improve communication with opposition parties, chose instead to
deepen the confrontation by insisting on passing the beef bill by any means
necessary.
The shirking of responsibility was especially evident when Ma defended the
government’s fuel price hike right before there was a major decline in the
global price of oil, saying it was difficult for the government to foresee the
decline in oil prices because “things are unpredictable.”
The government has also failed to take responsibility for the policy to increase
electricity prices and Ma and the Cabinet have instead blamed state-owned Taiwan
Power Corp for its poor performance.
This habit of dodging responsibility is also present at local government levels.
In the wake of Tuesday’s torrential rains, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was
harshly criticized for delaying the cancelation of work and classes and for the
serious flooding in Wenshan District caused by a technical error at the local
pumping station.
The city government’s response was to fire a technician and remove the director
of the Hydraulic Engineering Office from his post, while the commissioner of the
Public Works Department resigned to take responsibility.
Hau himself did not offer any apology to the public over the city’s poor
disaster management and blamed the delayed announcement on insufficient
information provided by the emergency operation center.
When predictions turn out to be inaccurate and incorrect decisions are made,
what we need are politicians who can take responsibility and demonstrate
determination to make the adjustments necessary to solve problems. The last
thing we need is for our leaders to avoid responsibility and blame ill-advised
policies on “unpredictable” factors.
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