Taiwan's last chance to fundamentally upgrade the structure of the central government will be missed if the Legislative Yuan fails to pass two laws required to authorize the revamping of the Executive Yuan, warned outgoing Research, Evaluation and Development Commission Minister Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) yesterday.

Yeh, who is leaving government service after four years to return to his professorship at the School of Law of National Taiwan University, also expressed his continued support for the goal of a "non-nuclear homeland" and stated that pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restructure energy use patterns "should be seen in a positive light as an opportunity instead as a crisis." Speaking at a reception to wish the minister farewell held by RDEC staff, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) praised Yeh's achievements during his four years in senior government service as a minister without portfolio and as RDEC minister.

However, Yeh acknowledged that Premier Su Tseng-chang persuaded him to work as an unpaid volunteer for the remainder of this legislative session in a last effort to secure passage of authorizing legislation for a massive government restructuring that would streamline the central government's current 36 ministries, agencies and commissions into 15 ministries and six Cabinet-level commissions and bolster the capabilities and functions of the Executive Yuan headquarters.

Major revisions

Yeh, who steered the effort to restructure the executive branch, stated that the DPP government had "already carried out considerable preparatory work" for the transformation of the Executive Yuan structure," but was still awaiting authorization from the Legislative Yuan to launch the actual restructuring.

The Cabinet submitted major revisions to the Executive Yuan Organic Law and a new draft "Executive Yuan Functions and Organization Adjustment Temporary Regulations" to the opposition dominated Legislative Yuan over three years ago, but neither bill has been approved despite widespread multi-partisan backing.

"This plan has nothing to do with partisanship or ideologies but with improving governance and administrative effectiveness and efficiency," Yeh said.

Nevertheless, the authorizing bills have been blocked from passage for over two years, mainly due to the bitter deadlock between the DPP-led Cabinet and the Legislature. "In my interactions with legislators from all parties, I have felt that support for this effort is great, but we have seen delay after delay until my four years have been used up with excuses that "the time is not right because of the poor atmosphere between the governing and opposition parties" or sudden political disputes," Yeh lamented. "When has the atmosphere ever been good in Taiwan?" asked Yeh, who warned that excessive concern with the short-term "atmosphere" would prevent any long-term measures from being adopted.

The departing RDEC chief added that failure to secure passage by the end of this term would be highly demoralizing to civil service officials and staff who have agreed to the restructuring plan.

Moreover, Yeh said that the approach of the year-end Taipei and Kaohsiung municipal elections, the end-2007 Legislature polls and the March 2008 presidential ballot will make realizing multi-partisan agreement on these bills even more difficult.

"This is the last chance to promote Executive Yuan reform," said Yeh, who warned that "if these bills again fail to be approved due to "the poor atmosphere between the governing and opposition parties" or other political disputes, Taiwan will lose a crucial opportunity to completely change its skin and invest in the future."

Yeh related that Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) had reaffirmed a commitment to push for approval of the necessary bills in this session after the outgoing minister visited the speaker Wednesday and also expressed appreciation for the verbal support for the re-engineering offered by KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) at Wednesday's Cabinet meeting. Yeh also stated that the governing party deserved credit for being willing to undertake the reforms. "This reform is not being carried out for any "interest" or "advantage," as the governing party in a period of administrative reform only bears burdens and can gain no benefit or more power," Yeh stated.

Non-nuclear homeland

Yeh, who has also been in effective charge of the Cabinet level commissions on sustainable development and the promotion of a "non-nuclear homeland," expressed his continued support for the gradual phasing out of nuclear power and acceleration of the development of alternative and renewable energy sources. During an address to a national conference on sustainable development earlier this month, Academia Sincia President Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) said the Democratic Progressive Party government should complete construction of the bitterly controversial and delay-plagued fourth nuclear power plant, while Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) told the DPP central standing committee Wednesday that the DPP should review its long term opposition to nuclear power given the emergence of a new global energy crisis.

"The question of nuclear power has caused huge social fissures until we finally were able to reach a consensus on the goal of a "non-nuclear homeland" and write this objective into the Environmental Protection Basic Law," said Yeh. He pointed out that Article 23 of the environmental statute does not require the cessation of Nuclear Four but requires gradual realization of the phasing out of nuclear power. "On that basis, we can cope with the pressure of climatic change by promoting the transformation of promote renewable energies and revamp the industrial structure by improving efficiency and reducing demand," Yeh stated.

Yeh also urged citizens to pay close attention to the fact that 97.8 percent of Taiwan's energy sources, including nuclear power, are imported and that reduction of this ratio was absolutely essential for Taiwan's national security. Yeh also stated that Taiwan should see the pressure to curb and ultimately reduce carbon emissions to help control global warming "positively as an opportunity and not as a problem."

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