VietNamNet Bridge – In Kien Luong district of Kien Giang province, shrimp and
fishes have all died because of the polluted water. Local people have to desert
their homeland because they have no more means of subsistence.
Investors leave, unfulfilled plant stays
Only a big billboard has been staying lonely for the last 5 years on a desolate
land plot, where a thermopower plant should have arisen.
In 2008, the government gave the nod to the development of the 4,400-5,200 MW
Kien Luong thermopower plant in Kien Giang province. The project was registered
by the Tan Tao Investment and Industry JSC, or ITACO, which then planned to pour
$6.7 billion into the project.
The Kien Luong Center is expected to have a helicopter field, park, an 18
hectare resettlement area and the apartment bloc for specialists. The
thermopower plant was planned to become operational by the end of 2013 and join
the national grid.
However, it’s obvious that no such a plant would be set up on schedule. Local
people said the investor has not done anything over the last two years, except
the construction of the foundation of the fresh water reservoir and the
plantation of some trees to prevent the sea waves.
All the machines and equipment serving the construction have been carried away.
There are only one representative of ITACO and some workers who take some
errands.
ITACO has gone, but it has left hundreds of households here with serious
environment pollution. The canal which brings water from the sea has been
blocked. A lot of fish and shrimp ponds have got polluted, because of which the
aquatic creatures have died.
Since there is no more drainage, tens of households who lived along the canal
No. 22 had to leave the homeland for the Mo So Mountain, where they live in
temporarily set tents. They are not sure when they can come back to their homes
which have been inundated under the water.
As no one answers to their shout for help, the local people tried to put the
stream flow through with an excavator. However, ITACO’s representatives and the
police then came and punished the people. As a result, the people have to leave
the homeland to look for other means of subsistence.
It’s still unclear when the investor would resume its project implementation.
However, it’s obvious that the project has brought big misery to local people
and damaged the living environment.
In a dispatch to the Kien Giang province authorities, Thai Van Men, General
Director of ITACO, said some foreign banks have agreed to provide loans to ITACO
to implement the project. However, ITACO would still have to get the
government’s guarantee and reach an agreement with the Electricity of Vietnam on
selling electricity to the group.
To date, the government still has not agreed to the proposal, while the
negotiations between ITACO and relevant ministries have got stuck.
Le Khac Ghi, Director of the Kien Giang provincial Planning and Investment
Department, admitted that he can see very little opportunities of ITACO getting
the government’s approval.
Meanwhile, Huynh Vinh Lac, Deputy Chief Secretariat of the Kien Giang provincial
People’s Committee’s Office, said the British Graham Associates has expressed
its willingness to develop the Kien Luong thermopower plant, an item of the Kien
Luong Center.
However, local people do not care about who would be the investor of the
project, and whether the government would approval the ITACO’s proposal. The
only thing they know that they now have to live in fears and the polluted living
environment.
NLD