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Pietermaritzburg - A senior official with the Russian company bidding for South Africa’s trillion rand nuclear programme has been accused in the US of accepting R18m in bribes, Fin24's sister publication The Witness reported on Wednesday.
Arrested by the FBI, Vadim Mikerin (55) is a director of the fuel supply arm of Rosatom, which supplies almost half of the enriched uranium fuel used at Koeberg - thanks to a deal struck by President Jacob Zuma.
Meanwhile, a new Greenpeace report - endorsed by major energy watchdogs - reveals that the giant Russian nuclear power plant supplier has fired 276 officials in three years on corruption-related charges.
The report states that “major corruption issues have taken root” at the state company - and warns that there was the “potential for exacerbated [corruption]” with its export contracts.
An earlier survey by Transparency International showed that 83 out of 200 sample Rosatom deals investigated had violated the company’s own procurement rules.
Last month, The Witness exclusively revealed that 20 Rosatom officials bid to sell eight nuclear power plants to South Africa’s department of energy at a secret workshop at the Champagne Sports Resort in the Drakensberg. With the assistance of nuclear experts, The Witness has estimated the “book value” of these VVER plants at R704bn, plus overrun costs.
The department gave the Russians the first chance to showcase offers for South Africa’s massive nuclear procurement programme, which is also to see pitches from France, China and the US.
However, the Democratic Alliance and other critics allege that Zuma and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have already struck an irregular deal to award the entire “nuclear build” to Rosatom, in a procurement scandal “which dwarfs the Arms Deal”.
South Africa’s energy chief Zizamele Mbambo said the procurement process had not yet begun.
Responding to new Witness revelations of widespread corruption at Rosatom, DA spokesperson Lance Greyling said: “The DA is shocked by these instances of corruption on the part of Rosatom. But unfortunately … nuclear deals allow great scope for corruption and backroom deals. We will simply not allow the government to sell our energy future based on backroom deals.”
Dr Nils Bohmer, a nuclear physicist at the Bellona Foundation in Finland, confirmed to The Witness that “you can trust the Greenpeace report”.
Bohmer said “corruption is a huge, and growing problem in Russia”.
However, he said: “At least we should give Rosatom credit that they are open to the fact that several of their executives have been sacked for corruption.”
Mikerin - US head of Rosatom’s fuel cycle arm, Tenex - was arrested in an FBI sting last week, according to Russian news agency Tass. He is accused of taking bribes from three American businesspeople in exchange for awarding R350m-worth of non-competitive tenders to transport enriched uranium to the US.
Mikerin is a key figure in Russia’s “megatons to megaWatts” programme, in which uranium from Russian nuclear weapons is downgraded and sold to US power stations. He is also accused of defrauding Rosatom.
In 2010, Zuma concluded a deal with then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for Rosatom - through its subsidiary Tenex - to supply over 40% of Koeberg’s enriched uranium needs for 10 years.
The Greenpeace report does not allege that corruption forms any part of Rosatom’s strategy.
And the company’s website invites employees to report corrupt activities to a department that “guarantees confidentiality and an independent review”, and offers three separate means of reporting offences.
Instead, Greenpeace alleges that a culture of corruption among many individuals, combined with Rosatom’s “unique legal status” in Russia - including exemptions from public oversight - made its activities vulnerable to graft.
It alleges: “Rosatom have had serious corruption problems, likely due, at least in part, to the structural lack of transparency and external accountability.”
A spokesperson for Rosatom did not reply to e-mailed questions.
- The Witness
