Ten public elementary school and junior-high school principals were indicted yesterday by prosecutors in Banciao District (板橋), New Taipei City (新北市), on suspicion of taking bribes from school lunch suppliers.
Banciao prosecutors last month indicted eight public elementary school principals in New Taipei City and have so far brought 18 principals before the courts.
Banciao prosecutors expanded the investigation yesterday by questioning another five principals in the city.
Four public elementary school principals — Hsiao Mao-sheng (蕭茂生), Yang Wen-ta (楊文達), Tsai Shue-Jiao (蔡雪嬌) and Chen Hao-jan (陳浩然) — as well as Chang Shih-ming (張世明), a senior high school principal, were summoned for questioning by prosecutors.
In the indictment issued yesterday, prosecutors said that as six principals — Hou Chuan-li (侯全利), Chao jung-ching (趙榮景), Pan Chiao-ning (潘教寧), Tseng Mao-shan (曾茂山), Fu Yu-ning (傅育寧) and Wu Yung-yu (吳永裕) — denied any wrongdoing during the investigation, prosecutors asked the Banciao District Court to sentence them to between 15 and 20 years in jail.
Four principals — Liu Chuang-jen (劉創任), Lo Jung-sen (羅榮森), Chiu Chung-shian (邱重賢) and Shen Ping-huang (沈炳煌) — were indicted yesterday.
Last month, eight principals — Chang Chung-jen (張崇仁), Yeh Chen-yi (葉振翼), Ko Fen (柯份), Wu Yu-mei (吳玉美), Lee Ming-sheng (李明生), Lee Ying-tsung (李應宗), Hsu Li-chen (許利楨) and Tsai Pao-chun (蔡寶俊) — were brought to the Banciao District Court.
Prosecutors said the lunch suppliers bribed a number of principals so they would receive a better evaluation, which helped their bids to supply lunches.
Schools typically hold bids for lunch suppliers once a semester. To gain an edge, prosecutors said some suppliers increased the price of their lunches by between NT$2 and NT$5 a serving, which went to bribes for the principals.
The bribes totaled between NT$200,000 and NT$300,000 a semester for some principals.
Some of the principals are also suspected of leaking the names of committee members in charge of reviewing the New Taipei City elementary school lunch program to suppliers so they could bribe the committee members, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said they have summoned a total of 34 principals for questioning so far and that another three principals had been reported to prosecutors.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS