Two public-private partnership (PPP) projects under the Transportation department are moving forward, a Cabinet official yesterday claimed, with a pre-qualification stage set to start this month and the Palace readying an order resolving an air rights issue.
An invitation to pre-qualify for the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) expansion and management contract auction, Transportation Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II said, will be issued in May.
“What is sure is that the invitation to pre-qualify will come out this month,” Mr. Roxas said. “Since this is a big project, we want to be sure that all parties that will participate are credible and capable of doing the project.”
The actual bid invitation — originally expected to be announced last month — is still being finalized, he admitted, giving a fare issue.
“The government doesn’t want to impose a higher fare. We are calculating and refining it to assure that the passengers will pay the right fare,” Mr. Roxas said, adding the Aquino administration also does not want to burden consumers with the planned acquisition of additional rolling stock worth P30 billion.
He said the government would first auction off the civil works for the LRT-1’s 11.7-kilometer extension to Cavite, which would add to the railway’s current 20.7-km stretch running from Baclaran in Pasay to Roosevelt in Quezon City. The winning bidder will also be given control of the LRT-1’s operation and management.
The purchase of 152 new carriages, meanwhile, will be bid out exclusively to Japanese firms to allow the government to avail of a low interest loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
For the elevated toll road project connecting North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) and South Luzon Expressway (SLEx), meanwhile, Mr. Roxas said Malacañang would be issuing an executive order (EO) resolving ownership of the airspace over Philippine National Railway (PNR) tracks.
“There will be an executive EO that will be reverting it back to the national government,” he said, declining to be more specific.
Home Guaranty Corp., which secured the rights to the airspace after assuming the state-owned rail firm’s obligations, cancelled a planned auction earlier this month after the Finance, Transportation and Public Works departments said the asset was a component of the PPP project.
Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC) has identified the airspace as part of its unsolicited “connector road” project that will link the NLEx and the SLEx. The firm has proposed a 13.4-km, four-lane elevated expressway over the PNR line from Caloocan to Makati.
A competing proposal, the 14-km Skyway 3 project that will run parallel to Epifanio de los Santos Ave., has been submitted by Citra Metro Manila Tollways. The government has allowed both to proceed, saying the projects are complementary.
The MPIC bid still has to undergo a Swiss challenge while the Citra proposal needs to be approved by regulatory agencies. Both could start “early next year,” Mr. Roxas said.
So far only one PPP project — the Daang Hari-Southern Luzon Expressway Link won by Ayala Corp. last December — has been auctioned off by the Aquino administration since the centerpiece program was launched in late 2010.
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Source: BusinessWorld, May 25, 2012
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