《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 President calls for Executive Yuan accountability drive

By Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter

President Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） yesterday instructed the Executive Yuan to push for accountability, transparency and efficiency for foundations and other legal entities founded using government contributions, the Presidential Office said yesterday.

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Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang （黃重諺） said at a news conference held after the weekly High-Level Policy Coordination Meeting that lawmakers had talked about how to supervise government-funded foundations to better preserve national resources.

Huang quoted Minister Without Portfolio Hsu Chang-yao （許璋瑤） as saying that in the past, the government funneled money from public donations to fund foundations to meet special requirements or accomplish specific policy goals.

However, mismanagement of those foundations has led to many problems, Hsu said.

Such foundations often failed to achieve their objectives, but continued to exist without a useful role or function, Hsu said, adding that they often became privately owned after amassing wealth and stopped serving the public interest.

Many foundations also became the sinecure of retired members of privileged government agencies, he added.

“Foundations that were created using public donations are essentially public assets and the government is responsible for reforming and augmenting their supervision to improve the efficiency of the government and safeguard public interests,” Tsai said.

The meeting concluded that the government is to investigate and recover unaccounted-for public funds, pass a law regulating foundations, with the Executive Yuan taking responsibility to draft a bill by the end of the year; amalgamate or disband publicly invested foundations that underperform and counter venality in those entities by enhancing oversight and management.

Meanwhile, Tsai said that the air pollution scandal in Kaohsiung’s Dalinpu （大林蒲） area needs to be resolved with transparency, environmental protections and fair housing conditions, and she expects the Executive Yuan and the Kaohsiung City Government to continue public hearings that encourage civic participation and to live stream the proceedings online.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES