Kuomintang chair 
Cheng Li-wun offered to buy all 15,000 Mid-Autumn gift boxes the Presidential Office had ordered from sheltered workshops and cancelled after the legislature cut and froze its state affairs fund. The legislature acted on a proposal by KMT legislator Weng Hsiao-ling to cut and freeze NT$30 million from the fund, the Liberty Times reported. The order spanned 37 sheltered workshops and disability-welfare groups.
How were the orders lost? A Presidential Office deputy secretary-general said days earlier that the office had planned to buy the 15,000 boxes this year and began contacting suppliers in June and July, CNA reported. After the budget was cut on Aug. 14, the official said, the office could only cancel the orders and apologise to the workshops. It has since promoted more than 60 sheltered workshops it bought from in past years, hoping to help them win orders.
What did Cheng say? The effort the workshops had already put in should not go to waste, Cheng said, and people with disabilities must not become "victims of political struggle." In a press release carried by CNA, she said what saddened her most was not the political squabbling but that workshop staff suddenly faced cancelled orders, with materials already prepared, work already scheduled and time and effort already spent. Buying the boxes had no complicated political purpose, she said, only a simple wish that every hard-working person with disabilities would know the products they make are valued and that each bit of their labour deserves respect.
Were other orders affected? The cut by KMT and Taiwan People's Party lawmakers also cost Hsi-Le, a care home in Changhua, an order for 325 boxes of custom egg-yolk pastries, the Liberty Times reported. Wu Yin-ning, deputy executive director of the Executive Yuan's Central Taiwan Office, bought all 325 boxes at a friend's request, and the home's director, Lin Yu-chang, and its residents wept with joy.
How did the parties react? KMT legislators complained in a group chat that the episode had spilled over and drawn plenty of negative feedback from voters, the Liberty Times reported. Some county and city chiefs told legislators they hoped Weng "can be quiet," candidates for mayor and county magistrate berated her in private, and it grew serious enough that KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi phoned Weng to tell her to "shut up." The Democratic Progressive Party camp's retort was: if you knew it would come to this, why do it in the first place?
Figures referenced: Cheng Li-wun. — JudgeMarket.
