|
2014 ELECTIONS: Local councils rife with corruption, watchdog says
By Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter
Local city and county councils remain opaque and unresponsive, with their lack of transparency leading to rampant corruption and waste, civil activists said Friday.
Citizen Congress Watch published results of a candidate pledge campaign asking Taipei and New Taipei City councilor candidates to promise to support policies to increase transparency and eliminate individuals’ “advisory funds.”
The group’s survey found that local councils are far less open than the Legislative Yuan, with the vast majority of localities not providing recordings of legislative proceedings, as well as related documentation such as attendance records.
“When we asked Taoyuan’s city council to provide attendance records, they replied that the attendance records are councilors’ information,” said Pan Chung-cheng (潘忠政), head of the Taoyuan Local Alliance, adding that while citizens can attend and view broadcasts of Legislative Yuan committee meetings, Taoyuan County council committee meetings were closed, with proceeding records were made public only after a year’s delay.
Activists said lack of transparency has made the local government budget process fester with corruption and waste. Even though local councils are supposed to be watchdogs over citizen’s funds, local councilors do not rigorously review budgets, with most local councils making little or no changes to executive branch budget requests, activists said.
Statistics compiled by the groups show that only five local councils cut more than 1 percent from executive budget requests, while eight made no changes at all.
A nationwide system of opaque personal “advisory funds” further compromises local councilors’ watchdog role, Citizen Congress Watch chief executive Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) said.
He said with the exception of Taipei, all other localities allow councilors discretionary funds for local development.
“Councils allot money to people who follow their lead,” said Hung, adding that funds are used to feed personal patronage by rewarding supporters.
“Local politics in Taiwan are politics of personal favors,” said Leung Man-to (梁文韜), professor of political philosophy at National Cheng Kung University and founder of the Legislative Reform Alliance. “Responsive democracy will only become a reality if personal-favor politics are replaced by just and impartial civil politics.”
Activists stated they used information made public by the Central Election Commission to contact all major party city councilor candidates for Taipei and New Taipei City.
Fifty-one percent of Taipei city councilors and 27 percent of New Taipei City councilors signed the pledge.
source: Taipei Times
|
