|
EDITORIAL: Pensions
duplicity is revolting
No one objects to reforms aimed at the healthy and substantive development of
the country. However, are the proposed reforms recently demanded by the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) government in line with the principle of fairness and
justice? This is a question in the minds of many who have been dutifully filing
their tax returns ahead of tomorrow’s deadline.
Given the nation’s deteriorating finances, with low tax revenues and increasing
national debt that as of the end of last month amounted to NT$5.455 trillion
(US$181.7 billion) with per capita national debt standing at NT$234,000, one
would expect the government to be more cautious about spending taxpayers’
hard-earned money.
However, the Executive Yuan’s latest proposed amendment to the Act Governing the
Recompense for the Discharge of Special Political Appointees (政務人員退職撫卹條例) has a
number of people wondering whether the so-called reforms of President Ma Ying-jeou’s
(馬英九) administration translate to lining the pockets of its officials while
depriving the working class and the poor.
According to the proposed amendment, the years one serves as a special political
appointee can be combined with years of service as a public school teacher when
calculating pensions. If passed, this proposal would mean that Premier Jiang Yi-huah
(江宜樺), who was a professor at a public university for 17 years before joining
Ma’s Cabinet, would see a massive increase in his pension, from NT$2.85 million
to NT$12 million.
Contrast this with the pensions of private and public-sector workers who have
seen their retirement pay shrink as the result of the government’s proposed
reforms for various financially stressed pension programs such as the Labor
Insurance Fund.
Ma has often lectured his officials on being mindful of public perception.
However, just how satisfied does Ma think the public will be with the proposed
amendment given that the majority of Taiwanese are seeing their pensions shrink,
while appointed officials such as Jiang and other Cabinet members will benefit
like bandits from the government’s so-called reformed pension?
Such brazenly shameless fattening of one’s own pocket is downright revolting. It
is bad enough that some top KMT officials are able to include their years of
party membership toward the required number of years of service for civil
service retirement benefits. This latest initiative has left many shaking their
heads in disgust.
The nation’s fiscal health is feeble, the government is racking up huge debts,
yet the government’s efforts to reform the nation’s under-financed pension
programs appear to be motivated by a desire to ensure that senior bureaucrats
and officials reap unwarranted benefits, and to hell with everyone else. The
drafters of the amendment were not just ignoring the principle of fairness and
justice, but appear intent on salting the nation’s wounds.
As the dutiful file their tax statements, it is truly disturbing to see how
their money is being eyed by a government which appears only to be interested in
lining its leaders’ pockets instead of empathizing with what its people are
enduring.
Making every taxpayer’s hard-earned penny count seems to mean something
different to Ma and Jiang than it does to the average Taiwanese.
|
