The head of the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp) , Mohamed Khaled Nordin, has misled Parliament on the issue of returning wastes from Lamp to Australia, Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh said.
Fuziah, who is currently in Australia for a study trip on elections, said in a statement that Khaled's statement published byMalaysiakini gave wrong information on the radioactivity of wastes produced by Lamp.
Fuziah, who is currently in Australia for a study trip on elections, said in a statement that Khaled's statement published byMalaysiakini gave wrong information on the radioactivity of wastes produced by Lamp.
According to the report, Khaled claimed that Australian law states that if the residue does not exceed 1Bq/g in radioactivity, then it is not considered radioactive.
"The residue produced by Lynas is under 1Bq/g, therefore it is not considered radioactive waste, it is not impossible that the residue can be shipped out," Khaled said.
However, Fuziah pointed out that documents provided by Lynas have shown that Lamp produces three waste streams - NUF (neutralised underflow liquid) and FGD (flue gas desulpharisation), which have a radioactivity reading of approximately 0.5 Bq/g, but the third stream, WLP (water leach purification) is solid waste and has a specific radioactivity of 6.2 Bq/g.
"Thus, going by Khaled's own acknowledgment, 6.2Bq/g is surely above 1 Bq/g and thus shouldn't it rightly be classified as radioactive waste?" she asked, adding that Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Maximus Ongkili has also acknowledged that the WLP solid waste is classified as radioactive waste.
"When Khaled made that statement in Parliament, was he totally ignorant of the facts? Or was he intentionally trying to mislead the House?
"If Lynas had briefed the PSC properly and completely and PSC had diligently done its work independently, it would have picked up that 6.2 Bq/g is indeed above the reading of 1 Bq/g.
"I urge leaders in position of authority to stop making fools of the rakyat. Even kindergarten children know that the number six is greater than the number one.
"It does not take a parliamentarian or a minister to figure that out. Khaled has thus made a total mockery of Parliament and the PSC," said Fuziah, who is also a PKR vice-president.
She concluded that the BN government had already made up its mind to issue a temporary operating licence (TOL) to Lamp at whatever cost, even to the extent of having its cabinet minister to mislead Parliament.
Fuziah suspects that the BN administration had perhaps been hoodwinked into agreeing to accept Lamp in Malaysia between 2007 and early 2008.
"It is highly probable that the authorities were not even aware of what the whole refinery was all about. It is also something to be expected of BN to use all three branches of power, namely the executive, the judiciary as well as the legislative, to support it in this wrong decision."
On the condition set by the government that the Lynas TOL would be revoked should the miner fail to build a permanent waste disposal facility within 10 months of the TOL being issued, Fuziah urged the government to impose stricter conditions by making it compulsory for Lynas to return its waste to Australia.
"What is stopping the government from imposing this condition, like what the Australian government had set when it gave licence to Ashton Rare Earth in 1992?
"What is stopping the government from taking a lesson from the best practice of (Australian rare earth supplier) Arafura and (US rare earth company) Molycorps ?" she asked
All three companies, Fuziah added, have made it compulsory to return the radioactive wastes to the original mines.
"The residue produced by Lynas is under 1Bq/g, therefore it is not considered radioactive waste, it is not impossible that the residue can be shipped out," Khaled said.However, Fuziah pointed out that documents provided by Lynas have shown that Lamp produces three waste streams - NUF (neutralised underflow liquid) and FGD (flue gas desulpharisation), which have a radioactivity reading of approximately 0.5 Bq/g, but the third stream, WLP (water leach purification) is solid waste and has a specific radioactivity of 6.2 Bq/g.
"Thus, going by Khaled's own acknowledgment, 6.2Bq/g is surely above 1 Bq/g and thus shouldn't it rightly be classified as radioactive waste?" she asked, adding that Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Maximus Ongkili has also acknowledged that the WLP solid waste is classified as radioactive waste.
"When Khaled made that statement in Parliament, was he totally ignorant of the facts? Or was he intentionally trying to mislead the House?
"If Lynas had briefed the PSC properly and completely and PSC had diligently done its work independently, it would have picked up that 6.2 Bq/g is indeed above the reading of 1 Bq/g.
"I urge leaders in position of authority to stop making fools of the rakyat. Even kindergarten children know that the number six is greater than the number one.
"It does not take a parliamentarian or a minister to figure that out. Khaled has thus made a total mockery of Parliament and the PSC," said Fuziah, who is also a PKR vice-president.
She concluded that the BN government had already made up its mind to issue a temporary operating licence (TOL) to Lamp at whatever cost, even to the extent of having its cabinet minister to mislead Parliament.Fuziah suspects that the BN administration had perhaps been hoodwinked into agreeing to accept Lamp in Malaysia between 2007 and early 2008.
"It is highly probable that the authorities were not even aware of what the whole refinery was all about. It is also something to be expected of BN to use all three branches of power, namely the executive, the judiciary as well as the legislative, to support it in this wrong decision."
On the condition set by the government that the Lynas TOL would be revoked should the miner fail to build a permanent waste disposal facility within 10 months of the TOL being issued, Fuziah urged the government to impose stricter conditions by making it compulsory for Lynas to return its waste to Australia.
"What is stopping the government from imposing this condition, like what the Australian government had set when it gave licence to Ashton Rare Earth in 1992?
"What is stopping the government from taking a lesson from the best practice of (Australian rare earth supplier) Arafura and (US rare earth company) Molycorps ?" she asked
All three companies, Fuziah added, have made it compulsory to return the radioactive wastes to the original mines.
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