MANILA - It will not produce
a single watt of electricity but it will still bill
Filipino taxpayers almost P2.1 billion (US$38.2
million) next year.
Martial law's monument to
folly and greed, the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power
Plant (BNPP) will cost the government P2.063 billion in
loan repayments next year.
Senator Ralph Recto
said the government is scheduled to pay $38.214 million
next year to two Japanese banks, one Swiss bank and two
US banks that bankrolled the construction of the plant
in 1975.
"Juan de la Cruz will be paying
P5,653,578 a day for a plant that doesn't produce enough
energy to boil an egg," Recto said.
The intention
to pay P2.063 billion in BNPP debt is stated in
the 2004 budget documents Malacanang presidential palace has submitted to
Congress. The plant's scheduled debt amortization is
among those that will be paid out of the P542.1 billion
debt service fund for 2004.
After the government
will have coughed up $38.214 million, or P2.063 billion
at an exchange rate of P54 = $1, next year, there will
still be $80.1 million left in BNPP obligations, Recto
said.
From 1986 to 1998, Filipino taxpayers paid
a total of P48.3 billion for "one nuclear plant that was
bought for the price of three and built near a volcano
and an earthquake fault", Recto added. Another P6.8
billion was allotted from 2000 to 2002 for BNPP loan
repayments.
This year, P2.163 billion will be
taken from the treasury to pay for the Ferdinand Marcos
government's biggest loan, 28 years after it was
contracted, Recto said.
He also noted that BNPP
debt repayments next year are bigger than the entire
2004 budget of the Tourism, Trade, Social Welfare,
Energy and Budget departments.
"If that
plant were a hospital, it
would receive the biggest allocation in the country, twice
that of the Philippine General Hospital. If it were
a college, it would get the highest budget next to UP
[University of the Philippines]," Recto said.
"And if what we
will pay for the useless plant's debt next year will be
distributed among poor households as power charge
subsidy instead, then we can provide P300 worth of
electricity per month to 573,000 homes for a year," he
added.
The two-reactor 1,200-megawatt nuclear
plant originally cost $600 million when the contract
to build was awarded to the US firm Westinghouse in 1974
but eventually soared to $2.1 billion, allegedly due to
payoffs made to government officials.
Upon assumption to power, the Corazon Aquino
government sued Westinghouse and its local agents for
overpricing the cost of the plant. Litigation ended in the
United States in 1992 when the government accepted an out-of-court
settlement for $188 million.
Recto said the BNPP
is "a constant reminder to governments to think of the
future generations who shall inherit its debts".
(Asia Pulse/PNA)
Oct 2, 2003
No
material from Asia Times Online may be republished in any form without written
permission.
Copyright
2003, Asia Times Online, 4305 Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Rd,
Central, Hong Kong
