Taipei, June 30 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian pledged Saturday to complete government restructuring over the next three years in order to cut government expenditure and upgrade overall national competitiveness.
Chen made the vow in a speech delivered at the opening of a workshop for senior government officials.
Outlining five goals for government rejuvenation, Chen said the government must slim down, reorganize, upgrade its ability to solve problems and wipe out official corruption, as well as forge partnerships and alliances between central and local governments and among various government agencies.
He pointed out that each Republic of China national has to spend more than NT$100,000 (US$2,941) per year supporting the operations of governments at various levels. "It’s a very heavy burden for our people. We can't find any convincing reason to continue this costly way of administration," Chen said, adding that Taiwan should trim its bureaucracy and establish a small but highly efficient government.
Chen said he fully understands the difficulties in trimming the government work force. "Nevertheless, we must still learn from other countries' experiences and set a clear goal for gradually slashing the total number of civil servants, including administrative staff at public schools, over the next few years.
Government agencies, Chen went on, can work out various kinds of incentives to encourage early retirement to facilitate personnel restructuring.
For the moment, he said the Executive Yuan, or the Cabinet, should give the top priority to its own organizational restructuring.
Noting that the Executive Yuan is burdened with too many functionally oriented departments while lacking in policy research and planning staff, Chen said the executive branch much undergo a sweeping structural reform to enhance its capabilities in policy planning, coordination and leadership.
As to how the Cabinet should be restructured, Chen outlined four directions--a massive-scale merger of functionally oriented departments; setting up a limited number of independent supervisory and control commissions as well as politically motivated special commissions; cutting the number of Cabinet ministries and councils by at least one-third; fundamentally changing the Executive Yuan's structure by opening several major policy planning units and legislating a new law governing the role, duty and functions of political appointees.
Chen said one major purpose of the Executive Yuan restructuring is to prevent it from becoming a bureaucratic body dominated by civil servants.
The president complained that the government restructuring and rejuvenation have been delayed for too long. "I hope that a new bill on the Executive Yuan organization can be drafted soon," he added.
Meanwhile, he stressed the importance of establishing a clean government. "We can learn from foreign experiences in setting up an independent organization to crack down on political graft and corruption," he suggested, adding that the government can consider appointing prosecutors to head government ethics departments and encouraging ethics departments to maintain close contacts with the watchdog auditing authorities.
President Chen said that they must face the challenges ahead by taking on their responsibilities to support and serve society.
Chen told the Executive Yuan officials that Taiwan is facing the challenge of a "deconstruction" of political and economic systems, challenges in its democratic order, challenges in national security and other challenges to society.
He added that mainland China's refusal to give up the option of using force against Taiwan and its "magnetic effect" on Taiwan capital has made national security an issue of primary concern.
To take on these challenges, Chen continued, the government should clearly understand its responsibilities by clarifying its role, understanding public opinion, accepting the responsibility for its policy-making and asserting its leadership.
Listing the goals for government reform, Chen said that the government must reduce its size, increase its ability to solve problems, rid itself of corruption, establish partnerships and alliances, and reorganize.
He criticized the organization of the Executive Yuan for being too weak on policy-making and recommended a large-scale merger of "functional-oriented" departments.
Chen also suggested cutting the total number of ministries and agencies by a third, while establishing a few independent "special" politically oriented committees to improve the Executive Yuan's policy planning, coordination and leadership abilities.
However, he stressed that the reorganization is not aimed at benefiting certain political parties but rather because it is necessary.