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An investigation by the Board of Audit has revealed that about half of the decontamination and other bidding projects being conducted by the Ministry of the Environment in the wake of the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station had only one bidder participating, and that the success rate tended to be high. The Board of Audit announced the findings on February 3, 2023.
A decontamination site in Naraha Machi, Fukushima Prefecture, which was opened to the press by the Ministry of the Environment in March 2013. In the foreground is a contaminated water treatment facility, and in the background is a temporary storage area for contaminated soil and other materials packed in sandbags
February 14, 2023
The Ministry of the Environment is in charge of nuclear power plant accident countermeasure projects, such as decontamination, treatment of contaminated waste, and construction of interim storage facilities for soil collected during decontamination, as part of the restoration and reconstruction projects following the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in March 2011. The total amount of the government budget for these projects amounted to 5.16 trillion yen through FY 2009.
Article 44 of the Special Measures Law stipulates that TEPCO will ultimately bear the costs of nuclear accident countermeasure projects as compensation, with some exceptions. According to the Ministry of the Environment, TEPCO has already compensated 3.1699 trillion yen, about 80% of the 4.209 trillion yen claimed as of the end of December 2010. Although government funds are not the final source of funds, they are subject to inspection by the Board of Inquiry.
At the request of the upper house of the Diet, the inspection office investigated the bids and contract amounts at the time of the order, mainly for nuclear power plant accident countermeasure projects with initial contract amounts totaling 1.854 trillion yen that were ordered by the Ministry of the Environment between April 2004 and September 2009. The decontamination projects, which are divided into those directly under the Ministry of the Environment and those ordered by local governments, mainly covered the former.
The bidding rate for the first project increased by more than 10 percentage points.
Among the projects covered by the survey, the National Audit Office examined the participation and success rates for 735 general competitive bids for construction and operations by the Ministry of the Environment’s Fukushima Regional Environment Office.
In terms of bidding participation, 49.3% of the bids were “one-party bids,” with only one participant; the percentage of one-party bids was particularly high for bids for construction consultant services, at 62.1%. The percentage was relatively low at 29.5% for construction bids involving decontamination work.
The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) was urged to ensure competition in order to reduce the bidding ratio, given the difference of more than 10 percentage points between single and multiple bids: 94.6% for single bids and 81.3% for multiple bids.
The difference in the winning bid rate was relatively small for construction work, at 97.5% for single bidders versus 91.9% for multiple bidders. On the other hand, for construction consultant services, the winning bid rate jumped from 78% for multiple bidders to 94.4% for one bidder.
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