Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors yesterday accused the Taipei City Government of failing to act promptly on allegations that a rice merchant was selling pig-feed grade rice to schools for school lunches.
The councilors said the government’s inaction resulted in students from 112 municipal schools continuing to eat the rice longer than they should have.
The scandal over the rice broke on Monday after the Changhua prosecutor’s office alleged that at least eight rice merchants had bribed officials in five agricultural associations to switch pig-feed grade rice for premium rice used in school lunches countrywide so they could pocket the difference in price.
The King Yi rice husk factory in Taoyuan County is alleged to have collaborated with the Lien Yo Food Company in Taipei City to sell the low-quality rice to schools in Taipei City and Taipei County, the prosecutor’s office said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄), Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) and Liu Yao-ren (劉耀仁) yesterday condemned the city government for failing to examine the quality of rice in 112 schools that received rice from Lien Yo Food Company until Thursday.
“The Taipei City Education Department is so slow that our children are still eating pig food in schools even after the incident has been publicized,” Chuang said yesterday at a press conference at the Taipei City Council.
The lunches in the 112 schools are provided by 45 central kitchens in 45 public schools, said Lin Hsin-yao (林信耀), chief secretary of the Education Department.
The department, apparently, did not begin a citywide examination of rice quality until Thursday and did not ban schools from providing rice in school lunches.
On Thursday the department confirmed the quality of rice at 34 schools and told the remaining 11 schools to stop using the rice until its quality was checked.
Huang said that, unlike Taipei City, the Taipei County Government had sealed all the rice bags in the schools and replaced them with new rice or noodles in school lunches immediately after learning of the news on Monday.
Showing pictures of cockroaches and worms found in the company’s rice, Chuang said the company has been providing poor-quality rice for years, but the department continued to accept it.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said a preliminary investigation found no poor-quality rice in schools. The Agriculture and Food Agency (AFA) and Taipei City’s Health Department are double-checking the quality of the rice. The result will be released by Monday.
Hau said he could guarantee that poor-quality rice was not used in public schools.
“We have nutritionists stationed at schools to check on the quality of school lunches and we can guarantee the quality of food in schools under the close watch of our nutritionists,” he said.
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