Inequitable distribution of resources and a small share of the ROC national budget were key issues in a meeting of directors from local government cultural bureaus April 18.
“These disparities are practical challenges to the goal of basing Taiwan’s soft power on grassroots vitality,” Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Lung Ying-tai said while opening the biannual meeting in Hsinchu County.
One month ahead of the CCA’s transformation into the Ministry of Culture as part of ROC government reorganization, Lung reiterated her idea to decentralize cultural policymaking and base Taiwan’s international cultural efforts in the country’s rural villages and towns.
As officials are mostly educated in cities, their decision making may be biased, she said, adding that this situation must be changed so all people, particularly those from the bottom rungs of society, enjoy equal access to art.
While agreeing with Lung’s proposal, Lee Ming-yueh, director of the Yunlin County Cultural Affairs Department, expressed concern about decreasing investment in the cultural sector.
In the field of cultural heritage preservation, for instance, central government funds to the financially strapped county have declined from 75 percent to 25 percent of the total required sum in just two years, Lee said, while according to regulations, the subsidy can be as high as 90 percent.
“Some designated historic sites will have to wait in line for 10 years to get renovated,” he said, adding that financial support has also been reduced for community empowerment work.
According to the CCA, the decrease in money for local community empowerment is due to the overall reduction in the budget earmarked for culture.
Lung acknowledged that the cultural sector’s share of the national budget is low, at around NT$16 billion (US$541 million), or 0.85 percent of the total this year, with most of it going to construction projects. She promised to seek a higher cultural budget for 2013. (THN)