BACIWA total takeover – Gamboa It is not – BACIWA Board Chair Dilag
In Amlig Tubig’s press conference at the Negros Press Club last Friday, Bacolod City councilor Wilson Gamboa, Jr. insisted that the Bacolod City Water District (BACIWA)PrimeWater deal is onerous with no infusement of capital and a total takeover and handover of water district. However, BACIWA Board Chair, Atty. Lorendo Dilag, reiterated that it is not.
Gamboa decried the move of BACIWA in a P6.3-billion 25-year Joint Venture Agreement with the Villar-owned firm PrimeWater. But Dilag said it is not takeover nor privatization.
“The Public Private Partnership (PPP)-Joint Venture is not privatization. A joint venture is an arrangement whereby a private entity on one hand and a government entity like BACIWA on the other hand contribute money or capital, services, assets (including equipment, land, intellectual property or anything of value), or a combination of any or all of the foregoing, to undertake an investment activity. The investment activity shall be for the purpose of accomplishing a specific goal with the end view of facilitating private sector initiative in a particular industry or sector, and eventually transfer the activity to either private sector under the competitive market conditions or to the government,” Dilag said.
BACIWA has entered into a 25-year joint venture agreement with PrimeWater, with the signing announced by Dilag and PrimeWater vice president Romeo Sabater last July.
Amlig Tubig, a water consumers group composed of Gamboa, the Social Action Center of the church and private individuals, and supported by Kadamay and other groups opposing the joint venture, filed last Friday in court a petition for declaratory relief and declaration of the nullity of the joint venture agreement with the issuance of temporary restraining order and/ or writ of preliminary injunction.
Yet Dilag stressed that the agreement with PrimeWater is not privatization nor a handover: “The joint venture agreement was signed only after three years. We worked for it because the Board of Directors sincerely believes in the project. We were one in this.”
He added that the said agreement is “practical, necessary, and beneficial for Bacolod because BACIWA has no financial capacity to fund an expansion project that would answer the need for more water supply.”
“On that score, we feel that we need a partner. We did not choose PrimeWater. (It) was able to qualify itself after two other stakeholders were disqualified. PrimeWater became the winner in its own right and in its own strength,” Dilag said in a statement.
He also noted that, in the first five years, PrimeWater would pour in P1.6 billion for pipe laying and after that, it would invest P2 billion more for the installation of wells, delivery of more water supply, and employees’ compensation.
Meanwhile, Sabater, who came with corporate counsel Gilbert Galvez, said the project would begin on November 1, wherein they would already be in charge of the daily operation of BACIWA’s water supply system, like the water source, operation, maintenance, distribution, customer service, payment, and collection.
“After 25 years, the assets put in place during the partnership will be turned over to BACIWA free of charge,” Sabater added.
Engineer Jenelyn Yap-Gemora, assistant general manager for operations, in previous interviews, said BACIWA caters to only 48 percent of the total population of Bacolod.
“The ultimate goal of the joint venture is to provide 24/7 water services, if not to 100 percent, but at least 90 percent of the population,” Gemora added./WDJ