PPP gains ground with airport offer
THE DUTERTE ADMINISTRATION’s public-private partnership (PPP) thrust has made headway with the offer to investors yesterday of projects designed to improve services and develop facilities in five airports deemed strategic to provinces’ economic growth.
The Department of Transportation yesterday released an invitation for prospective investors to pre- qualify and bid for five airport development, operation and maintenance projects, namely: Bacolod- Silay, Davao, Iloilo, Laguindingan and Bohol (Panglao).
The invitation, published in a newspaper and posted on the Web site of the government’s PPP Center, said the projects “aim to improve services at the… key regional airports by concessioning [ sic] operations and maintenance to private- sector proponents, including required enhancement of airside and landside facilities…”
The deals, cumulatively worth some P108.18 billion, are now up for grabs after the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board, led by President Rodrigo R. Duterte, approved their unbundled offer in its November meeting in order “to expedite early completion of PPP selection and award.”
The government under former president Benigno S. C. Aquino III had first offered six projects on Dec. 14, 2014, grouped in two bundles in a bid to improve attractiveness in terms of project cost and projected passenger volume, with Bacolod, Iloilo and Puerto Princesa airports forming the first package as well as Davao Laguindingan and New Bohol (Panglao) airports composing the second one.
At that time, the project deals were estimated to cost a combined P116.23 billion.
In March 2015, the Transport department removed Puerto Princesa airport from the PPP bundles, citing the significant tourism potentials of the area. The plan then was to bundle development of Puerto Princesa airport with that of other Palawan facilities like San Vicente and Busuanga.
Submission of bids for the airport packages, however, had to be deferred twice since they were rolled out at end-2014.
Qualified to bid then were: Filinvest-Jatco- Sojitz Consortium (Filinvest Land, Inc.; Japan Airport Terminal Corp. and Sojitz Corp.), GMR Infrastructure and Megawide Consortium ( Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.), Maya Consortium ( Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. and VINCI Airports), Philippine Airports Consortium ( Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Philippines Airports Management Co. — a tie-up of Aeroports de Paris Management SA and TAV Havalimanlari Holdings AS) and SMHC-IIAC Airports Consortium ( San Miguel Holdings Corp. and Incheon International Airport Corp.)
In a statement on its Web site, the PPP Center quoted the Transport department as saying that previously pre-qualified bidders remain cleared to submit bids for the projects under the new offer “provided that there are no changes in their legal, technical, and/or financial capacity.”
San Miguel, Metro Pacific and Megawide earlier this month confirmed they remained interested.
Other interested parties may purchase for a non- refundable fee of P300,000 per airport project documents consisting of the invitation to pre-qualify and bid, project information memoranda and instructions to prospective bidders at Unit 164, 16th floor, The Columbia Tower, Ortigas Ave., Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila.
This is the second airport PPP deal after the P17.52-billion Mactan Cebu International Airport bagged by the Megawide- GMR consortium on April 4, 2014.
Contracts for 14 PPP projects cumulatively worth P293.91 billion have been awarded since the infrastructure program was launched in 2010’s third quarter, right after then president Aquino took office.
The Duterte administration — which had initially said in its first week in office in July last year that it targeted to roll out up to 17 PPP projects by the end of 2017 — has said it would take a more deliberate approach to PPPs, noting its predecessor had taken too much time to roll out and award deals under this program, which had been its infrastructure flagship.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has said the current administration plans to avoid the PPP scheme whenever it appears better for the government to undertake projects itself, especially given current capability to do so.
NEDA Deputy Director General Rolando G. Tungpalan said late last month that the government was exercising caution in using the PPP scheme due to contingent liabilities the state must shoulder in case project deals do not work out.
Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said earlier this month that the government targets to spend up to P9 trillion on infrastructure development from this year to 2022, when the Duterte administration ends its term. — with