The Ministry of Education yesterday demanded that all public high schools, vocational high schools and universities conduct a thorough internal investigation after a retired employee from the nation's top university was detained for allegedly defrauding the school's pension fund of up to NT$22 million (US$700,000).
“It is very important for schools to launch an internal probe ... Schools should take this problem seriously,” said Wang Ching-chien (王敬前), the director of the ministry's Department of Government Ethics.
Wang said the ministry had asked National Taiwan University (NTU) for a report on the school's gate-keeping mechanisms.
The case made headlines after a retired employee from NTU's personnel department was taken in for questioning on Wednesday as a defendant in a corruption case.
Wang Chiung-yun (王瓊雲), 53, allegedly embezzled money from the NTU pension fund for retired campus safety security officers by setting up dummy accounts with information allegedly provided by Wu Chia-lin (吳佳霖), a janitor at NTU, between February 1998 and September 2006.
Wang Chiung-yun — who was previously in charge of retirement, compensation and severance pay at NTU — allegedly gave Wu NT$10,000 for every piece of personnel data Wu obtained from family members and friends for the dummy accounts.
The Taipei District Court early yesterday morning ruled to detain Wang Chiung-yun, and barred Wu from leaving the country.
Wang Ching-chien said the NTU reported the alleged violation to the ministry on April 13 and the ministry immediately took legal action.
Wang Ching-chien said the university did not discover the alleged fraud until earlier this year when Wang Chiung-yun, who retired on Sept. 30, 2007, allegedly tried to commit a similar offense by pretending to help a new school employee with compensation-related business.
University accounting personnel later found a NT$1 million pension application among school documents Wang Chiung-yun offered to help deliver.
NTU vice president Chen Tai-jen (陳泰然) told reporters yesterday that the university had reviewed and improved the school's pension application procedure.
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