hankyoreh

By Jung Se-ra, staff reporter

Following a series of forgeries of nuclear power plant part test results and other quality control documents, a government-wide nuclear safety inspection was carried out. But it turns out that the foreign company that was in charge of the special evaluation by international specialists is in fact the parent company of the South Korean company that was primarily responsible for the forgeries.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company (KHNP) and the South Korean government claimed that the country’s nuclear plants had become safer because of quick action taken after the forgeries became public, but critics are pointing out that the culprits and the evaluators were actually in cahoots.

According to documents that the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission and the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy submitted to New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) lawmaker Jang Byeong-wan during the parliamentary audit on Oct. 7, the company that carried out the special inspection of the operating status of Korean nuclear plants between May 2013 and July 2013 was a subsidiary of TÜV SÜD Group, a German conglomerate.

This company, which KHNP hired to carry out quality control, was found to belong to the same group as a company called Kocen, which shares much of the blame for the forgeries. The safety inspection concluded that there were no major problems regarding compliance with regulations and technical standards.

Kocen is a private company in which the TÜV SÜD Group acquired a 100% share in 2010, but it had previously been a part of KEPCO E&C, which is a public company. Even today, KEPCO E&C is charged with the final review of quality control documentation for parts used in nuclear plants.

It is generally thought that there are close ties between staff at Kocen and at KHNP and KEPCO E&C. Ha Je-dae, president of Kocen, used to work for KEPCO E&C. It is very common for executives at KHNP and KEPCO E&C to later get jobs at Kocen.

Kosen’s role in the forgery scandal is undeniable. For 10 years, KEPCO E&C essentially relied on Kocen to oversee all of the work by manufacturers and the organizations that issue quality control documentation. Kocen participated in the work process and reviewed documents in order to see whether appropriate quality control documents were being issued and whether part design complied with regulations.

This is why the quality control documents for the nuclear reactors that were built over the past ten years had Kocen‘s stamp of approval, with the company earning a cool 40.5 billion won (US$37.86 million) for its efforts.

But then fabricated documents were discovered two years in a row, in 2012 and 2013. A complete review was carried out of around 290,000 quality control documents, showing that well over 2,000 had been fabricated. Kocen’s stamp of approval was also found on the fabricated quality control documents for the cables that caused the shutdown of nuclear plants in 2013.

Despite this, few efforts have been made to hold Kocen accountable. Furthermore, Kocen and its parent company TÜV SÜD Group were given additional projects during the government’s response to the fabrication incident, which has also provoked criticism.

After KEPCO E&C suffered around 3 trillion won in losses from the suspension of nuclear reactor operations last year following the fabrication of quality control documents for cables, it sued the parts manufacturers and the organizations that issued the documents for 130 billion won in damages.

However, no action was taken against Kocen, which had added its seal of approval to the documents. In fact, Kocen was assigned additional quality control work at Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 at Yeonggwang nuclear power plant at the end of 2012, when part of the fabrication scandal came to light.

Meanwhile, Kocen’s parent company the TÜV SÜD Group won a bid on the special inspection by an international organization, which is worth around 2.2 billion won. An executive for TÜV SÜD Korea is a member of the South Korean government’s commission for improving the acquisitions system.

“We keep seeing the companies that ought to be held responsible for the fabricated parts bidding for and winning government projects for responding to that fabrication. Behind a patina of objectivity, the company responsible for the problem is entrusted with assessing that very problem. If this repeats, this vicious cycle of corruption in the nuclear power industry will continue, and the public’s distrust of the industry will deepen even further,” NPAD lawmaker Jang Byeong-won said.

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