Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant
TIB calls for transparency in project
Terming nuclear power plant as a relatively environment friendly source of electricity, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a statement on December 25 appreciated the governments initiative of establishing a nuclear power plant (NPP) in Rooppur with the help of Russia. TIB, however, expressed its concern over the proper and transparent implementation of this highly sensitive and extremely expensive project for which Bangladesh completely has to rely on its project counterpart Russia.
In the statement, Dr Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of TIB said, the TIB has asked for complete transparency in different stages of implementation of the Rooppur nuclear power plant. It also asked the government to release detailed information about the project in public interest.
We are specially concerned that the nuclear reactors of Russia are even considered by the Russian experts as unsafe and unreliable. Besides, the implementing agency of Rooppur NPP, Atomostroyexport, which is jointly owned by two Russian state owned organizations Rosatom abd Gazprombank, is not considered as reliable in taking appreciate responsibilities in case of any accident, he said.
Under the circumstances, Iftekharuzzaman said, we want the government to release some of the information about the plant in the interest of the people.
The information sought includes whether the general contract, which was signed recently, has any provision to make Atomostroyexport compelled to take all liabilities in case of any hazard to environment or peoples life, the financial details of this massively expensive project, information about the actual benefits of Bangladesh against the interest of Atomostroyexpor and whether the contract would achieve competitive advantage for Bangladesh.
Referring to a media report published in September this year, Dr Iftekharuzzaman also said that those reports said that the project cost would be $4 billion.
But within three months, the cost has increased almost three times. We demand to know why this happened because at the end of the day, the people of Bangladesh will have to bear the burden of any loan provided by Russia, he added.
TIB is an independent, non-government, non-partisan and non-profit organization with a vision of Bangladesh in which government, politics, business, civil society and the daily lives of the people shall be free from corruption.
In the context of the international movement against corruption, as the fully accredited national chapter in Bangladesh of the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI), TIB partners and cooperates with TI and its chapters worldwide.
