The education ministry reported 17 new cases in which its personnel had been involved in illegally securing post-retirement positions for bureaucrats in recent years, the ministry said Tuesday.
The findings, announced in an interim report as part of an inquiry into the job placement racket, bring the number of cases discovered in the ongoing scandal so far to 27.
"This serves as evidence that the ministry has been systematically involved in violating regulations on re-employment," education minister Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference.