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