Nation: Suspect cables on high-speed lines replaced
National investigation into railway components launched after scandal
The China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) announced Friday that it has replaced all the electric cables it purchased from a company that has been found to have supplied substandard cables to subway and high-speed rail projects around the country.
The cables were made by Shaanxi Aokai Cable Co, which provided substandard cables for, among other projects, the subway system in Xi’an, capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, the People’s Daily quoted a CREC official as saying on Friday.
The scandal was made public Monday when the deputy director of the National Wire and Cable Products Quality Supervision and Test Center said at a press conference that the electric cables on Subway Line 3 in Xi’an were substandard.
Besides the Xi’an subway, Aokai cables have been replaced on CREC- built lines including the Baoji-Lanzhou high-speed railway, the Xi’an-Chengdu high-speed railway, the Chongqing-Guiyang high-speed railway and the Lanzhou-Chongqing high-speed railway, said the People’s Daily report.
The CREC official stressed that safety is always their priority and they will not allow any safety risks, vowing to investigate those who are involved with using substandard cables and to hold them accountable, the People’s Daily reported.
The cost of the replacement should be carried by Aokai Cable as it was the company’s duty to provide appropriate cables, Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, told the Global Times on Friday.
The Shaanxi Aokai Cable Co could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Zhao also noted that the government should investigate whether corruption was involved at any stage.
“Normally, the market access threshold for railway tenders is relatively high, and it’s not easy for a young company like Shannxi Aokai to supply products to CREC.”
Aokai Cable was established in November 2012, according to a statement on the company’s website.
The company also won its bid to provide items for Beijing’s Subway Line 7 and subway projects in Shanghai and Chengdu, capital of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
Aokai Cable signed contracts worth 13.6 million yuan ($1.97 million) with Beijing MTR Construction Administration Corp and the Electrical Service Engineering Co of China Railway First Group Co in 2013, domestic news portal thepaper.cn reported on Thursday, citing authoritative documents.
A Chengdu transportation official announced on Thursday that the authorities would replace all the substandard cables used in the city. However, transportation authorities in Beijing and Shanghai denied that they used any cables produced by Aokai Cable, local media in the cities reported Friday.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine announced a nationwide emergency notice on Thursday to investigate the selling and usage of cables produced by Aokai Cable, and also a special inspection into the safety of the country’s cables more generally.
An Aokai Cable executive knelt and apologized during a TV interview on Tuesday, after the Xi’an local media reported the electric cables used on the city’s Subway Line 3 were substandard.
Eight employees of Aokai Cable have been detained, the Xi’an Information Office announced Tuesday.
The company sold cables worth 250 million yuan ($36 million) to more than 60 clients from 2015 to 2017, the Xi’anbased newspaper Chinese Business View reported.