Pinoys paying P5.8 million a day for Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

After paying P61 billion for nearly two decades, taxpayers will still have to cough up P6.3 billion more to pay off loans on the $2.2-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant that has yet to produce even a single watt of electricity.

Citing a report submitted to him by the Bureau of Treasury, House appropriations committee chairman Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. of Camarines Sur said interest and principal payments for the plant will run up to P2.1 billion alone this year.

"That’s P5.8 million a day for a plant that can’t even light a single bulb," he said.

Next year, Andaya said amortization of the Bataan nuclear plant debts would eat up P2.08 billion in scarce government resources.

This will go down to P1.14 billion in 2007, before tapering off to P217 million in 2008 and P210 million in 2009, he said.

He added that from 2010 to 2018, when the debts are extinguished, taxpayers will pay a total of P464 million, or P51.6 million a year.

He pointed out that from 1986 to last year, Filipinos have paid a total of P61 billion for the plant, not counting the payments made during the Marcos regime, which incurred the loans and built the plant.

Andaya revealed the figures on the "annual upkeep of the white elephant" in response to the call of Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno for the government to repudiate the nuclear plant debts because they were tainted with fraud and graft.

An international corruption watchdog group recently listed the Bataan nuclear power plant as one of the most graft-ridden projects in modern history.