The central government is very concerned about the persistent flooding issues in various localities, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Chen Wei-zen expressed today when he met with Yunlin County Magistrate Su Chih-fen to exchange opinions on water control expenditures.
"Water control projects should be a common concern of both central and local governments regardless of their political party affiliation," indicated Chen.
The secretary-general instructed the Water Resources Agency (WRA) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to work out water control follow-up plans and invite the Council for Economic Planning and Development and various local governments to meet and discuss priorities, expenditure allocation, division of labor as well as follow-up maintenance and management for river and regional drainage works under the charge of counties and municipalities. "The WRA should complete this task within one month and send the project to the Executive Yuan for review," he said.
Many places in Taiwan suffer severely from flooding whenever there are heavy rains, pointed out Chen, who traced the problem to county and city governments' relative inability to effectively manage rivers and tackle drainage. In response, the Executive Yuan approved the Regulation Project of Flood-prone Areas in May 2006 and in accordance with the Special Act for Flood Management set aside NT$116 billion (US$3.87 billion) for a three-phase initiative over an eight-year period (2006-2013) to establish water control works in the 500 square kilometers (sq km) of flood-prone land considered most urgently in need of this assistance.
The WRA has since invested NT$8.31 billion (US$277.43 million) to handle Yunlin County's flooding problem, accounting for 10.4 percent of the agency's total implementation expenditures of NT$80 billion (US$2.67 billion) on this initiative to date, Chen said, citing MOEA statistics. As a result, flooding problems have abated in 95.7 sq km of county land, which is 19.1 percent of the targeted 500 sq km. "This indicates the importance the central government has placed on flood control in Yunlin County," said Chen.
In response to the Yunlin County Government's request that the central government's allocation of water control funds be expedited, the secretary-general said that the Special Act for Flood Management will be in force only until the end of this year, as stipulated by its Article 16. As the central government's finances are tight, he asked the WRA and Yunlin County Government to jointly determine water control priorities so the most pressing flood-prone areas are addressed first.
In order to immediately grasp the reason for and conditions of the flooding caused in parts of Yunlin by Typhoon Trami last week and communicate this knowledge to the county government, the WRA's Fifth River Management Office and Water Resources Planning Institute on the morning of August 22 sent staff to Tuku, Yuanchang, Dapi, Taixi and Shuilin townships, where they inspected areas like the Kezicuo Drainage System and the middle and lower reaches of the Luliao Drainage System.
Other large-scale water control projects like the Luliao water pumping station, the Yantan drainage and water pumping station and the Boziliao detention basin are still under construction, the secretary-general noted, and he predicted that with their completion, which is scheduled for the end of this year, Yunlin's flood control capabilities will improve enormously.
Magistrate Su's delegation today included Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus convener Ker Chien-ming and legislators Lee Ying-yuan, Liu Chien-kuo and Tuan Yi-kang. The Executive Yuan was represented by Secretary-General Chen, MOEA Deputy Minister Woody Tyzz-jiun Duh, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Deputy Minister Luh Dun-jin and WRA Deputy Director-general Wang Ruei-de.