By KHT Staff
KAOHSIUNG — Democratic Progressive Party legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) and Kuomintang lawmaker Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) appeared together on Friday at a farm product promotion event in Kaohsiung’s Dashe District (大社區), where a discussion on local development turned into a public exchange over the stalled central government budget.
Ko, the KMT candidate, and Lai, the DPP nominee for Kaohsiung’s November mayoral race, greeted each other with a handshake and sat side by side before taking the stage. During his remarks, Lai urged residents to continue supporting his work in Kaohsiung and said delays in passing the national budget were affecting funding for local construction and subsidies. He accused the Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party of blocking the budget review and called on Ko to press her party to move the process forward.
Ko responded by rejecting claims that the opposition was refusing to review the budget. She said existing budgets could be extended and that key livelihood-related items had already been separated for expedited review. Ko added that unresolved policy issues, including military pay adjustments and retirement benefits for police and firefighters that have already passed final legislative approval, needed to be addressed before full budget deliberations could proceed. She said social welfare spending had not been affected and pledged to continue pushing for Kaohsiung’s share of funding.
The exchange followed a similar dispute the previous evening at a firefighters’ appreciation banquet in Kaohsiung, where lawmakers from both parties also argued over the budget. Friday’s incident highlighted how the ongoing budget standoff in Taipei is increasingly surfacing at local events in southern Taiwan.
Source: China Times
