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.
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