School managers tried over slush fund
CHINA'S quest to rid itself of corruption has led its crackdown from government officials and corporate managers to school principals.
Ye Lie, principal of the No 6 Secondary School in Fushun, Liaoning, was tried at the end of last year for embezzling a total of 1.07 million yuan (HK$1 million) with eight other school administrators.
Ye, vice-principal Wang Yanwu and general affairs department director Chen Zhenmin were arrested for embezzling money the school received from students' parents, the China Youth Daily reported last week.
Also involved were the vice-principal Sun Ping, school Communist Party secretary Wang Xuezhong, and director of instruction Lin Xiuhai, controller of outside funds Wang Ling, accountant Chang Hong and cashier You Chunyi.
The No 6 Secondary School accepted paying students in addition to those who were tested before going to the school. Each year, the school accepted between 2,000 yuan and 16,000 yuan from each student.
Although the money should be handed over to the city's education committee, the administrators kept the first lot of tuition payments worth 300,000 yuan and placed it in an account called 'outside funds'.
Some of the money was used to cover housing costs and to pay the controller of the funds to keep quiet. Other portions of the money were distributed when teachers in the school became suspicious of the outside fund account.
When Wang Xuezhong wanted to retire he decided to distribute the funds. The school principal received 30,000 yuan, the school's party secretary received 25,000 yuan, the vice-principal received 20,000 yuan and the director of teachers received 15,000 yuan.
This set the standard for future fund distributions. From August 1996 to August 1999, the money was distributed eight more times under Ye's direction.
The Fushun Intermediate People's Court has yet to make public its verdict.
