Page 69 - An Overview of Penghu

Finance of towns and village

Ÿ Financial situation

Local administrations cannot sustain their operations due to lack of capital in
general; they need subsidies from the Government-General of Taiwan every year to make
ends meet. To solve this problem, governments in towns and villages continue to develop
local industries, while storing up basic reserves year by year to stabilize local economies.

However, their savings were still insufficient to serve as their main assets. For
instance, Magong Town has borrowed about 101,000 Taiwanese yen from the Industrial
Bank and Taiwan Bank to build water infrastructure and public housing.

Unfortunately, the water infrastructure did not fare well and could not even meet one-
seventh of the government's water supply target, causing the water fees to decline
remarkably. The administration is in a dire situation now as it defaulted on the early
repayment of its debt and failed to apply for more loans to maintain the infrastructure. To
cope with the aforementioned issues, the prefectural government should supervise Magong
Town in repaying its debt and provide assistance to towns and villages to help them
stabilize their economies.

Ÿ Annual final accounts:

The final account in 1930 (special account for Magong Town's water infrastructure
excluded) amounted to 127,624.10 Taiwanese yen. The main income sources were
town/village taxes (49,592.62 Taiwanese yen, or 39% of the annual income), access fees
and processing fees (29, 778.51 Taiwanese yen, or 23% of the annual income), and
subsidies from the Government-General of Taiwan (10,617.52 Taiwanese yen, 8% of the
annual income), followed by incomes from other sources, which amounted to 7,117.57
Taiwanese yen.

The biggest spending was in district offices, which accounted for 36,746.64
Taiwanese yen, or 25% of the annual expenditure, followed by expenditures on education
(24,290.21 Taiwanese yen, or 19% of the annual spending), hygiene (9,923.48 Taiwanese
yen, or 8% of the annual spending), markets (9,908.19 Taiwanese yen, or 8% of the annual
spending), bonds (4,001.34 Taiwanese yen), incidentals (3,002.80 Taiwanese yen), and
industrial development (2,814.10 Taiwanese yen).

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