Losses associated with the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant would be recognized by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) after a referendum next year, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said yesterday.
The power plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) has been mothballed since 2015 amid construction controversies and protests from environmentalists.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has pledged to make Taiwan a “nuclear-free homeland” by 2025, and Taipower has already sent the power plant’s fuel rods back to the US to be dismantled.
Photo: David Chang, EPA-EFE
However, it is still counted as an asset on Taipower’s books.
“There will be a referendum in August on whether to activate the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant,” Wang told reporters at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. “We will wait for the result of that referendum before recognizing it as a loss and finding alternative ways to utilize the site.”
The losses associated with the ill-fated project are enormous. According to Taipower’s annual report, the costs associated with the power plant, including the transportation and disposal of the fuel rods, is NT$285 billion (US$9.9 billion).
Citing an unnamed source who is a “senior member of the ministry,” the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) yesterday reported that writing off the power plant would put the state-owned utility “on the brink of bankruptcy.”
“Taipower executives are taking the easy way out, but in the process they are breaking the law,” the source told the newspaper.
Describing the power plant as “too hot to handle,” the source accused Taipower decisionmakers of “hiding the loss as an ongoing construction” and “leaving the problem for their successors,” the paper reported.
Article 71 of the Business Entities Accounting Act (商業會計法) cites “intentionally omitting accounting events and failing to record transactions thus causing financial statements to become untrue” as an offense, with penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to NT$600,000.
Although a state-run company, Taipower is 6 percent privately held and its shares are traded publicly on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The company in a news release said that it is seeking to maximize the power plant’s remaining assets, including land, before recognizing the loss.
“We expect to maximize the asset value of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, then we will have a basis to figure out how to accurately recognize it in our books,” Taipower said yesterday.
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