Luanda – National and international experts completed this Friday, in Luanda Province, the draft of the Integrated Nuclear Security Support Plan.
During the four-day meeting, issues related to threat and risk assessment, highlighting the need to make national assessment towards these threats, the identification of risks and the establishment of measures on Nuclear Physical Security nationwide, was emphasised.
Among the potential risks, the emphasis was on internal threats, such as to contractors, employees and security guards.
Regarding security guards regime, were addressed issues such as use, storage and transportation of radioactive materials and the need to establish and maintain updated the national inventory of nuclear and radioactive materials, as well as to develop a step-by-step approach to the communication system in order to identify the risks related to the facilities authorised by the regulatory body.
In this regard, the need for the country to install security measures such as web pages at border crossings to identify and prevent possible malicious actions was also emphasised.
On the detection of criminal and other unauthorised acts involving Material Outside Regulatory Control (MORC), it was stressed the importance of the country making a national commitment to developing and implementing a physical Nuclear Security Detection Architecture (NSDA), involving related ministries and including internal and external threat assessment programmes.
The experts recommended the implementation of the National Plan on the Response to Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response, drawing up memorandums of understanding with all relevant institutions in the radiological emergency plan and the creation of mechanisms for training decision-makers in nuclear safety, as well as memorandums of understanding with the neighbouring countries with the view to cooperating in issues related to nuclear security in order to make the regulatory body independent in taking decisions.
According to the director of the Angolan Atomic Energy Regulatory Agency (AREA), Pedro Lemos, after finalising the first draft, the associated members of the regulatory body will review the document and send it to the nuclear safety department of the International Atomic Energy Agency for their contributions.
After this step, the document will be submitted to the government for approval and its implementation will have a timeframe of four years.
The Integrated Nuclear Security Support Plan (INSSP) allows the country to identify and prioritise its nuclear security needs.
Nuclear energy, also called atomic energy, is a type of energy produced through reactions that take place in the atomic nucleus of heavy elements and change their structure.
The most commonly used heavy element is uranium. This process releases an enormous amount of energy, which has many applications, one of which is the generation of electricity. ANM/ART/MRA/jmc
