Lawmakers fail to agree on motions to freeze electricity hikes next month

The Legislative Yuan yesterday failed to reach a decision on whether power rate hikes next month should be suspended after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus raised a motion to put the issue to cross-caucus negotiations.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Friday last week announced that electricity rates would increase by 3 to 25 percent from Monday next week to September.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucuses on Tuesday raised separate motions to freeze the rate hike and to discuss the matter yesterday.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has repeatedly reassured the public that Taiwan would not suffer from a power shortage and that the government would not hike prices, yet the nation has seen multiple price increases over the past few years, KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) said yesterday.

The ministry’s decision to raise power rates next month would be the most significant, as it is expected to affect 13.4 million households nationwide and could presage another swell in commodity prices, he said.

‘WRONG POLICIES’

The public is shouldering the cost of the DPP government’s insistence on pursuing wrong-minded power policies, and the KMT is resolved to stymie the government’s unilateral decisions with a proposal to freeze rate hikes and a motion to amend the Electricity Act (電業法), giving the legislature power to ratify rate hikes, he said.

TPP Legislator Chane Chi-kai (張啟楷) said that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) used to be a model for state-owned businesses, but a lack of reforms over the years has resulted in the company’s ballooning debt burden, which should not be passed on to consumers through tariff hikes.

The TPP caucus demanded that Taipower submit a comprehensive report to the legislature’s Economics Committee on the company’s plans to improve its financial situation, and that all attempts to raise prices be relegated to the back burner before the report is completed, he said.

DPP Legislator Hung Sunhan (洪申翰) said that suspending the planned hikes now would be equivalent to the public subsidizing others who use more power.

“That is even more unreasonable,” Hung said.

OVERREACH

DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said that legislative powers should not overlap or supersede administrative powers, adding that the opposition parties’ proposals could “never be accepted.”

Accepting such demands would hamstring the sustainable operations of Taipower, Wu said, adding that the DPP caucus’ proposal to put the issue to cross-caucus negotiations would prevent unreasonable proposals from taking effect immediately.