Enron under scrutiny after blast in plant

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, AUG 10. The U.S. power giant Enron, controversially familiar in India, has come under scrutiny in Britain after three workers died in an explosion at its Teesside power station on Wednesday.

The accident triggered a campaign to demand a closer look at its political links amid allegations that it bought political influence to get decisions in its favour.

It has been alleged that a ban on gas-fired power stations was lifted in 1999 to allow Enron to set up the Teesside plant, a year after it donated £ 15,000 to sponsor a dinner at a Labour party conference. Later, it was permitted to set up another project in Kent and campaigners against its environmental policies were surprised when the chairman of Enron Europe, Mr. Ralph Hodge, was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) honour for ``services to the power generation and gas industries.''

Critics recalled that Enron featured prominently in a list of Labour donors which, according to Friends of the Earth, had ``dodgy ethical and environmental records.'' They also pointed to a stinging Amnesty International report on the methods used by Enron's local contractors at its Dabhol power project in India, and the company's difficulties with environmental agencies in the U.S. Commentators attacked Labour for hobnobbing with a company which had aroused so much hostility among human rights and environmental groups around the world.

``Indeed, nothing illustrates new Labour's ardour for the world of commerce than its repeated willingness to take cash from Enron,'' said The Independent pointing out that in 1995, it was named as one of the world's worst 10 companies by a group which monitored multinational corporations. Highlighting Enron's political clout, the paper said it was no stranger to controversy or buying its way through donations either in Britain or the U.S. where its chairman, Mr. Kenneth Lay, believed to be an energy adviser to the President, Mr. George W. Bush, donated £ 200,000 to the Republican cause. In Britain, it said, Enron was ``extremely well known'' in high political circles and gave the impression of ``securing what it wants... such as when the Labour Government came to office vowing not to allow any more private gas fire power stations, only to relent in Enron's case on Teesside.''

The cause of Wednesday's explosion is not known except that it happened during a routine maintenance work. The incident caused panic and hundreds of workers were evacuated. The chief executive of Enron Power Operations, Mr. Tim Underdown, said it was too early to speculate about the cause. Employees said while the company had a good safety record such incidents were bad for its image. ``This is the thing that everybody dreads... this kind of thing shakes everybody'', one employee told journalists.

The Teesside plant is the largest of its kind in the world and pressure groups seized on the blast to step up their campaign against Enron.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Reforms a major challenge for Koizumi
Next     : Arroyo orders probe into Abu Sayyaf-military links