Board of Audit and Inspection Begins Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy Audit on Basic Energy Plan... 'Post-Nuclear Phase 2'?

Board of Audit and Inspection [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Son Sun-hee] The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) has launched an audit to investigate the legality of the government's nuclear phase-out policy formulation process. However, the timing of the audit coincides with the ruling party's mention of the 'Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant tritium leak' suspicion, leading to ambiguous interpretations.

According to the BAI on the 14th, the audit began on the 11th and is expected to last about two weeks. It aims to verify whether the policy implementation procedures related to the 3rd Basic Energy Plan, passed at the Cabinet meeting in June 2019, were lawful. The Basic Energy Plan is established by the government every five years. In line with the nuclear phase-out policy, which was a campaign pledge of President Moon Jae-in and a core policy of the current administration, the proportion of renewable energy was significantly increased (from 11% to 30-35%) compared to the 2nd plan. The suspicion arose that the 8th Basic Electricity Supply and Demand Plan, announced in 2017, was pushed forward recklessly without any revision to the Basic Energy Plan, which is the highest-level plan.

This audit was initiated following a public interest audit request submitted by Jeong Gap-yoon, then a member of the United Future Party, with the consent of 547 citizens in June 2019. It took a full 1 year and 7 months from the request to the actual start of the audit. The BAI explained that it was difficult to conduct on-site audits last year due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the day the audit began, the 11th, Lee Nak-yeon, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said, "The fact that radioactive substances were detected in groundwater at the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant (in Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk) itself is shocking," and criticized the BAI, saying, "It is hard to accept the audit results of the BAI, which audited Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant for over a year but failed to confirm the unprecedented radioactive substance leak." This has led to interpretations that the ruling party and the BAI are clashing in a 'second round' following the audit related to the early shutdown of Wolseong Unit 1 concerning the nuclear phase-out policy.

Meanwhile, regarding the suspicions raised by the ruling party, Jeong Jae-hoon, president of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, explained through his social media that "The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission also concluded that there was no tritium leak."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.