FOUR-MONTH TRAINING: The military would this year only recruit 118,000 men aged 18 or older, a report released by the Legislative Yuan showed/ Staff writer, with CNA
NOT ENOUGH ROOM: The Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center criticized the defense ministry and said female soldiers have been performing just as well as male onesBy Wu Su-wei and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Ministry of National Defense’s failure to require female reservists to attend educational mobilization for military reserves “violates the principle of gender equality,” a report released yesterday by the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said.
The report, which focused on the government’s efforts to make better use of reserve forces over the past few years, cited the ministry as saying that although it only reached half of its annual target for the training of reserve forces this year, it had no more training capacity at present, and therefore had not called up female reservists.
The report criticized the decision to overlook female reservists,
More than 20 percent of technical production employees at the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology would reach retirement age within five years, which could affect the institute’s operations, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report.
As of the end of last year, 12.67 percent of research and development (R&D) personnel, or 600 employees, and 21.27 percent of technical production personnel, or 893 employees, were older than 60 meaning they are within five years of the institute’s retirement age of 65.
The institute had 11,383 full-time employees as of the end of last year, and among them
A Ministry of National Defense initiative to obtain US-made Harpoon missiles is plagued by cost overruns, poor coordination with contractors and procedural irregularities, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said.
In a report released this month, the center said the ministry made changes to the program without resubmitting a proposal to the Executive Yuan, adding that such incidents “call [the program’s] propriety into question.”
In October last year, the US approved the sale to Taiwan of 100 Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems, a package comprising launch vehicles, 400 missiles and other components.
While the ministry planned to buy the equipment in separate batches from this