Premier Jiang Yi-huah approved an annual budget on Tuesday of NT$1 billion (about US$33 million) to reward local government efforts on food safety.
The fund will be used to reward local governments that have done well in ensuring food safety. Local governments that are not resolving their food safety problems may also have their budgets cut in the future.
Cabinet spokesman Sun Lih-chyun explains:
"The Cabinet says, to be effective, central and local governments must work together to investigate food safety problems. The central government will be in charge of policy and planning while local governments must investigate," said Sun.
"To encourage local governments to crack down on illegal behavior, NT$1 billion will be set aside a year to reward good performance. This shows the government’s determination to resolve food safety problems. We hope there will be no more [reason for] citizen complaints of local government’s not dealing with the problem," he said.
In the future, the central government will evaluate local governments’ performance in dealing with food safety. It will also publicly post the ranking and performance of cities and counties in this respect.