Former UES head accepts responsibility in power plant accident

The former head of a defunct Russian electricity monopoly, Unified Energy System(UES), Anatoly Chubais has admitted that he was obliged to commission the country's largest hydropower plant in Siberia in 2000 despite problems that might have caused its recent accident killing 75 people.

Chubais was referring to yesterday's report by Russian industrial safety watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, announcing the results of a probe into the causes of the August 17 accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant on Siberia's Yenisei River that destroyed a turbine hall and killed 75 people.

Rostekhnadzor said Chubais was among those responsible for the accident.

Chubais, who held a number of key ministerial posts under late president Boris Yeltsin since the 1990s and was appointed head of Russia's State Nanotechnology Corporation last September, has always been unpopular with public. ''I will not conceal that the first theory was a terror attack...

We have probed into everything in detail, no traces of a terror attack have been found,'' Nikolai Kutyin, Rostekhnadzor head, told reporters today.

''I believe as the head of UES of Russia, I was obliged to sign an acceptance report for the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in 2000,'' Chubais told RIA Novosti news agency.

He admitted that energy producers were then facing high risks due to lack of funding.

However, Chubais said suspending the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant that started operating on Siberia's Yenisei River in the 1970s, over lack of investment in the replacement of hydraulic wheels ''would be a catastrophe for the Siberian economy and millions of people living there'' back nine years ago.

Chubais welcomed the Rostekhnadzor probe which he said fully reflected the technical causes of the accident.

''As for my responsibility, I am responsible for everything that was happening to the sector. And the death of 75 of my fellow power engineers is a severe tragedy to me personally,'' he said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently vowed to reconstruct the power plant saying it will partially resume work in 2010.

''The power plant will produce its first electricity next year, in 2010,'' Putin said.

-- (UNI) -- 04DF3.xml

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