Japan's nuke safety inspections criticized as mere formality

Japan's safety inspections on nuclear plants were labeled by an independent fact-finding panel as mere formality.

The panel also said the same against the government's vertically-structured administrative system.

In a report, the panel also pointed out that the current system under which private power companies operate nuclear power plants in accordance with the government's policy has given rise to moral hazards regarding safety regulations and obscured where responsibility lies.

As a symbolic example of the harmful effects of the government's vertically structured administrative setup, the panel's report cited a delay in the government's announcement of data on the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, which predicts how radioactive substances will spread.

The government ordered the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry to compile data on radiation doses, which the Nuclear Safety Commission would announce. 

 However, NSC Chairman Haruki Madarame testified that the ministry decided on the division of roles without
consulting NSC and forced it to announce SPEEDI data.

The panel assumes that the ministry shifted the role of announcing SPEEDI data to the NSC without consulting its members.

"The possibility cannot be ruled out that the ministry's response, which suggests that it tried to evade responsibility, contributed to the delay in announcing data," the report says.

Furthermore, the panel pointed out that a lack of communication between multiple government organizations that inspect nuclear power plants has allowed them to conduct safety inspections merely as a formality, as a result of which they failed to take effective measures to respond to the nuclear crisis.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and its affiliate, the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, and the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry and its affiliate, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, conducted inspections on nuclear plants, according to the panel's report.

"These bodies did not have smooth communications with each other. Each of them only did what they were supposed to do and failed to effectively respond to the accident," it states.

The report also says that safety inspections on nuclear plants are inadequate.

"Inspection bodies were supposed to merely copy everything from documents compiled by electric power companies and check if they've inspected their nuclear plants according to the procedures," the report quotes a JNES inspector as saying.

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