Make sure that the government will not demolish it, and the illegal factory will rush! The Labor Assistance Law requires that factories be dismantled immediately, but the number of illegal factories increases instead of decreasing.

7 share

Illegal factories on agricultural land in Taiwan are rampant. The Council of Agriculture counted a total of 130000 illegal factories on agricultural land across the country, occupying nearly 14000 hectares of agricultural land illegally. After Tsai ing-wen's government took office, it announced that illegal factories built after 520 in 2016 should be immediately reported and demolished, and an amendment to the Labor Assistance Law was passed in 2019, giving the central government the authority to demolish illegal factories. However, according to the statistics of the ring regiment, there were as many as 466 new illegal structures on agricultural land after 520. After the passage of the Labour Assistance Law, the ring delegation even had documents to censor 125 illegal factories on agricultural land, except one which was demolished by the owner.

The operators saw that the government did not have the determination to enforce the law, resulting in a wave of illegal factory construction on agricultural land. The operator who built the tin house of the factory told the reporter, "as long as you rush over and build it up, the government can only number it (compiled into the illegal factory case). Anyway, the number of the previous cases has reached more than 30,000, and the government can't just dismantle yours right away, right?"

There are even "field rats" who specialize in renting agricultural land, building factories and leasing, and are optimistic that business opportunities will enter the market on a large scale. Under the circumstances that the localities connive at breaking the law and the central authorities are lazy and do not deal with them, illegal factories' occupation of agricultural land is not only going on now, but is even more rampant, accelerating the destruction of the agricultural production environment.

Similar advertisements can be seen everywhere in the countryside, handling illegal factory legal matters (Photography / Lin Jiyang) promises to put an end to farmland violations, but continues to connive at breaking the law.

After Tsai ing-wen's government took office in 2016, it promised to put an end to the chaos of illegal factories on agricultural land, and the then administrative team declared that it would set May 20, 2016 as the boundary for the demolition of new illegal factories. In the future, new illegal factories on agricultural land will be "reported and demolished". Illegal factories before 520 will be dealt with according to their location, and if they are in excellent agricultural areas, they will guide the relocation. If it is legal to allow cluster factories to be local outside the excellent agricultural areas, but the operators have to pay ecological compensation fees and do a good job of restoration for agricultural production.

In 2017, the Council of Agriculture also announced an inventory of agriculture and agricultural land resources, taking stock of 130000 illegal factories of agricultural land across the country, occupying nearly 14000 hectares of agricultural land illegally. Chen Jizhong, then vice chairman of the Council of Agriculture (the current chairman of the Council of Agriculture), said at that time, "after the platform is put online, it will be very important in the practice of the provisions of immediate dismantling or whistling. At that time, which county or city will break the rules? the local government and the central government should share the pressure of public opinion, instead of just pushing the responsibility to each other, we can also achieve the effect of protecting agricultural land."

However, apart from the declared demolition of 16 illegal factories in early 2018, there is no follow-up, and the second wave of demolition list is scheduled to be released in April 2018, but it has not been announced as late as today. The "Action platform for demolishing New illegal factories on Agricultural Land" set up by the Executive Yuan in 2017 emphasizes "the progress of openly dismantling illegal factories and demonstrating determination to maintain the agricultural production environment." Today, reporters read the platform to inquire about the progress of implementation, but the website has been removed.

2017 the Council of Agriculture announced the farmland map platform, the red block is the illegal factory of agricultural land (pictured from the platform), the labor assistance law is strong, and the farmland factory is still a long way off.

In order to manage illegal factories on agricultural land, the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to the Factory Management guidance Law in June 2019, stipulating that illegal factories added after 105-520 should be forcibly demolished. In view of the past inaction of the local government, the central government cannot manage the dilemma, while the amendment to the Labor Assistance Law gives the central government the power to cut off water, electricity or demolition in accordance with the law. In addition, the illegal factories before 1995 and May 20 had to complete the procedures of accepting management, improvement, payment of guidance fees, registration and land change within 20 years.

In this amendment, citizen groups originally requested that the Labor Assistance Law should be included in "citizen litigation", so that residents and citizen groups around illegal factories could, through judicial relief, request local governments to actively enforce the law. Wang Meihua, then vice minister of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said that there was already a reporting mechanism and that there was no need for additional "citizen litigation" to veto it. At that time, Huantuan advocated that the reporting mechanism at this stage was basically empty, and expressed strong regret that "citizen litigation" had not been included.

In the absence of a civil litigation mechanism, Huantuan can only continue to report the newly added illegal factories on agricultural land after 520, but so far, no illegal factories have been demolished. Shi Yueying, director-general of the Changhua Environmental Protection Alliance, contacted the central office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which deals with illegal factories, and asked, "when is the central government ready to demolish illegal factories?" The Ministry of Economic Affairs responded that it "needs to be dealt with by the local government" and even violated the provisions of the Labor and Auxiliary Law on the demolition of illegal factories on agricultural land by the central government.