Policy budget slashed 90%, halting dispatch; Chu uses video to monitor central‑southern disasters.

On the 24th, Executive Yuan spokesperson Li Hui‑chi informed the press that, after several days of intense rainfall that had caused widespread flooding across the central and southern regions, Premier Zhuo Rong‑tai had originally intended to travel to the front lines to assess the damage and conduct inspections. However, a recent massive cut to the Executive Yuan’s “policy implementation liaison fee” by the Legislative Yuan—reducing the budget by 90 %—has materially constrained the Premier’s ability to schedule and execute disaster‑response activities. To avoid disrupting the local governments’ already tense emergency operations and to allow frontline rescue workers to focus fully on their duties, Premier Zhuo has instead been conducting telephone and video‑conference calls to stay immediately informed of the situation reports and actual needs from local governments.

The 90 % cut to the “policy implementation liaison fee” plays a pivotal role in the central government’s total budget, acting as a vital conduit for coordination. For years, administrative leaders have relied on this flexible, mobile funding to advance nationwide policies, coordinate cross‑departmental work, visit local communities, and mobilise resources during sudden crises and natural disasters. The budget not only supports the leaders’ routine official communications but also serves as the financial backbone that enables the administrative team to quickly activate emergency mechanisms and support local governments’ administrative needs during typhoons, heavy rain, or earthquakes. With the budget now trimmed to less than 10 % of its former level, the Premier’s capacity to allocate resources during sudden crises has been effectively severed.

The cascading effects of the budget cut were already evident in the central and southern regions’ flood‑control and disaster‑response operations. Traditionally, when a major disaster breaks out, the central leadership’s presence on the ground serves both a political gesture of solidarity with affected citizens and a practical means of making on‑the‑spot decisions to address urgent shortages of supplies, manpower, or equipment. In the absence of adequate policy‑implementation funds, Premier Zhuo’s decision to lead a large contingent of officials and security personnel southward could have inadvertently diverted the very police and administrative resources that local governments needed for rescue efforts. Consequently, the Executive Yuan weighed the options and opted to replace on‑site inspections with telephone and video calls. While this decision stemmed from a desire not to interfere with local rescue operations, it also highlights the administrative agency’s struggle to exercise basic executive authority after a severe budget cut.

The incident underscores the ongoing fiscal tug‑of‑war between the Executive and Legislative Yuan. While the Legislative Yuan’s scrutiny of the executive’s budget is a normal constitutional check, the recent near‑total elimination of funds earmarked for a leader’s official communications and outreach has consequences that extend beyond political image. The cuts undermine the national machinery’s overall emergency‑response capability. By publicly revealing the 90 % budget reduction and the resulting travel restrictions, the Executive Yuan sought to explain the practical constraints behind its adjusted disaster‑response schedule and simultaneously warn the Legislative Yuan and the public that excessive budget cuts create tangible obstacles and hidden risks to the country’s administrative operations.

Looking ahead, as climate change intensifies and extreme weather events become more frequent, cooperation between central and local governments in disaster prevention and response must become even tighter and more flexible. The Premier’s travel restrictions during disaster response are not merely a financial shortfall within the Executive Yuan; they constitute a structural warning about national crisis‑management efficiency. Finding a reasonable balance between oversight and administrative effectiveness—so that politically motivated budget cuts do not ultimately jeopardise the safety and property of ordinary citizens—will be a critical issue for Taiwan’s political arena in the wake of this controversy.

(Source: Central News Agency)