Consumers of “Made in China” goods are at serious risk of being harmed by purchasing inferior technology and defective equipment. Nearly every week for the past several months, the government and China’s state-controlled media have provided more evidence of how widespread the quality and safety problems are in China. The Chinese counterfeit, primitive and outdated technology is a multi billion-dollar industry, is thriving in China. The Asian countries are being flooded with fake and poor-quality Chinese technology by Chinese government itself in name of development projects. The countries are first exploited for their land and resources and then the outcome is even more disastrous for the host country (already under Chinese debts for the cost of the project) as the final product is outdated and does not even come close to being efficient in terms of output.
The latest victim of inferior and outdated “Made in China” technology is Sri Lanka. The news that the US$1.35 billion China-made Norochcholai thermal power plant run by Sri Lanka has halted its operation did not surprise anyone, because the plant has been ‘at the point of death’ since its commissioning in 2011. The nationwide power cut was implemented after all three units of the Norocholai coal power plant broke down. Sri Lanka will now turn off electricity across the country for two-and-a-half hours daily with effect from Monday, the state-run power firm said. This has come after a break down in a $1.35 billion Chinese-built 900 megawatt coal power plant. Suren Batagoda, the secretary to the ministry of power and energy said the coal plant has shut down for the fourth time for this year and Sri Lanka faced blackouts on the previous three occasions. The plant has already suffered more than 26 break downs since it was commissioned in March 2011. According to Bandula Chandrasekara consultant of the National Electricity Consumers’ Movement, each time the plant suffers a breakdown, there is a LKR 26 million cost in restarting it. The Power and Energy Minister said that each day the plant is not in operation, it is costing the Ceylon Electricity Board LKR 109 million in losses.
Sri Lankan authorities have announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed with China in September 2016 to help repair the US$1.35 billion “Made in China” Norochcholai power plant as it broke down yet again this week. Jellyfish reportedly clogged up filters at the trouble-plagued plant, with officials struggling to fix it before the Chinese President’s visit. Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Media Spokesman Senajith Dassanayake said, “Around 30-40 divers have to be used to remove these creatures from the filters. We were hoping to remove these creatures from the filters of Unit 1, but unfortunately, seas these days are extremely rough in the area and the divers haven’t been able to go in thus far.”
The plant was built by a Chinese company, China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) and the first phase has been completed by adding 300 MW power to the national grid. CMEC has been given the contract to construct the second phase of the coal power project to increase the plant’s capacity up to 900 MW, at a total cost of US$1.35 billion loaned by China’s Exim Bank. According to international pricing, the cost for the power plant should be in the region of US$900 million and they questioned as to who had taken the balance US$ 400 million from the Chinese deal. CEB Technical Engineers Union accused the Chinese company for creating technical problems with the aim of continuing the massive contract of maintaining and administering the power plant. The Sri Lankan government is already paying back the loan since 2015 at the rate of interest for the US$1.35 billion loan being around 5% per annum which is very high as compared to the global standards of World Bank.
The Chinese company that built the Norochcholai’s Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant has hit back at claims that it had sold Sri Lanka a dud generating station. CMEC, rejects allegations that high commissions had been factored into the contract price. They also insists that the negotiations and signing of the agreement were done “strictly as per the official procedures”. The Sunday Star Times editorialized that the problems with Unit 1 at the plant were wide ranging including “mishaps from valve repairs and pipe damages to coal mill fires, abnormal fluctuation in turbine lube oil pressure, a hydrogen seal oil leak, debris filter damages, high temperature in cooling water pumps and a failure of both transmission lines. “The fact that all instruction manuals for the plant –including its many, many auxiliaries — are in Chinese is “a big problem”. Even machine components are labeled in Chinese. Translations are ongoing ‘on the run’, so to say. What government in the world agrees to a design-build-and-transfer power plant without an assurance that basic instruction manuals are in a language that could be understood by the party expected to run it? It is difficult enough to operate a Chinese mobile phone with directions only in that language. The scale of Lakvijaya is a thousand times bigger,” the Sri Lanka’s newspaper editorialized.
China is busy extending bilateral ties with countries of the Asian subcontinent, offering technology and projects in lieu of the exploitation of resources. Chinese deals come wrapped in ribbon of friendly loans and deals but upon opening the wrapper and on taking a closer look, we find that China is exporting outdated and inferior technology at a high price. The deals offered have China’s hidden priorities as main agenda, totally neglecting the proposed benefit for the host countries. China’s friendship is fake and so is Chinese products, equipments and technology. BEWARE !!!
