Now Nuclear Plants Can Get Phony ISO Certificates, Too

Thanks to Matt Gantley’s UKAS, the nuclear power plant industry doesn’t need to feel left out from the club of corrupt industries that can get dubious ISO certifications. The UK accreditation body, which to date has no problem seeing its logo used by companies engaged in widespread global bribery or human trafficking, has announced it has begun selling that logo accrediting certification bodies for ISO 19443, the standard for nuclear quality management systems.

The first accredited body is none other than Bureau Veritas, the same CB that continues to certify Odebrecht, the architect of that very same global bribery scandal, which resulted in the Peruvian president shooting himself in the head rather than be taken into custody for his ties to the company. BV then rewarded Odebrecht with a Directorship, which I am sure wasn’t the result of any bribery.

According to its press release on ISO 19443, UKAS kanoodled collaborated with its French counterpart COFRAC to lazily hand diligently award Bureau Veritas’ its accreditation. If the name COFRAC rings a bell, they accredited the labs responsible for falsely certifying the PIP breast implants which were fabricated with industrial grade, rather than medical grade, silicone. COFRAC claimed “it was not responsible for the output of a lab and could not guarantee test results,” despite its marketing saying the exact opposite:

[COFRAC’s] Objective: to offer solid guarantees to our customers, the customers of our customers and to private and public specifiers, to earn their trust day after day!

In short, the usual IAF corrupt bodies are up to their old tricks, expanding the ISO Ponzi scheme into yet another industry that is desperate for some shoddy window-dressing to improve their public relations. Gantley, who has overseen the eradication of UKAS’ reputation since he took over, is more than happy to make up entirely new schemes to sell to entirely new dupes.

Worse still, UKAS actually boasts that ISO 19443 has adopted the ISO Technical Management Board’s “high-level structure,” meaning that the Netherland’s Dick Hortensius is now a nuclear expert. Hortensius, you may recall, is the architect of the universal “Annex SL” text which ISO demands be put into every management system standard, regardless of the subject matter. So Annex SL appears in standards related to quality management, environmental management, cybersecurity, … and now the management of nuclear power plants. Hortensius, meanwhile, has never had an actual private industry job, nor ever worked in any of these fields. Per his own LinkedIn profile, he was a student researcher for a single project on soil pollution before taking his first job almost 40 years ago at NEN, the Dutch standards body, where he’s been writing standards ever since. He’s not an expert on anything, but is now writing standards on everything.

The good thing is that nuclear power isn’t risky at all, so it won’t matter if something blows up. While some lizards might grow to immense size and destroy Japan, COFRAC and UKAS will have their excuses already pre-validated.

“We are not responsible for the output of the nuclear power plants and cannot guarantee they won’t totally blow up.”

I’m betting Gantley and Hortensius don’t live anywhere near a nuclear power plant.