Officials want to question three over nuclear scandal

Prosecutors sought three people yesterday to question them about their work on a reactor pedestal for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.

Work and materials on the pedestal have been found to be inferior and defective.

Prosecutors filed an appeal with the Kaohsiung District Court to detain Chen Chih-kuang (陳智光), an on-site supervisor for China Shipbuilding Corp (中船公司), and Lee Hsin-ching (李新慶), manager of the Huang-chie Company (皇傑公司), which was contracted to build the pedestal, and Chen Han-chuan (陳漢川), a welder who worked on the pedestal.

In court documents, prosecutors said there is reasonable cause to believe that the three colluded to use a weaker welding material to join the rebar framework of the pedestal on which the reactor would be positioned.

Investigators also suspected that Huang-chie was involved in bid-fixing to win the contract from China Shipbuilding.

Prosecutors began investigating the case after the Atomic Energy Council found on June 4 that welding materials used on the framework were below specifications and resulted in the structure being 11 to 12 percent weaker than called for in the contract.

The Taiwan Power Company (台電), which divided the construction of the nuclear plant into a number of projects and contracted them out in public bidding, has ordered that the foundation be dismantled and rebuilt.

The New Asia Construction and Development Corporation, which was awarded the contract to build the pedestal, ordered the rebar framework from China Shipbuilding, which in turn hired Huang- chie to weld the joints.

Taipower said the pedestal has yet to be completed and that it had not yet taken delivery of the item. The company would, therefore, not have to pay for redoing the rebar work, which will cost an extra NT$30 million (US$882,350) and delay the plant's construction for at least three months.

Construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, which was initially slated to be completed by 2004, is already one year behind schedule because of the government's flip-flop in 2000 on whether to press ahead with the project.

In related news, the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday published its investigation into the matter. The report blamed recent problems on unsatisfactory construction and quality management, saying that if fundamental control, supervision, inspection and follow-up systems had been thoroughly implemented, problems would have been much less serious.

The ministry also published a list detailing the punishments for those involved. The list included 22 employees of China Shipbuilding and Taipower, who will have demerits written into their work records.

China Shipbuilding General Manager Chiang Yuan-chang (江元璋) was given one demerit for unsatisfactory supervision and direction, and Deputy General Manager Fan Kuang-nan (范光男) was given two demerits for the same offense.

He Ming-ching (何明卿), a mechanical plant manager, and Shih Chi-jung (施啟榮), a project manager at the plant, were given one major demerit each, both for unsatisfactory supervision and direction, while Wu Chao-kui (吳昭木貴), manager of the mechanical plant's Luchi factory, was given two demerits.