‘Govt must spend for Naia rehab’
ALAWMAKER on Tuesday warned the Department of Transportation (DOTR) not to pursue the privatization of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) as it is disadvantageous to the flying public.
Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta Party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles said during the budget hearing for the DOTR that the unsolicited proposal is “onerous and unfair” as the government opened up opportunities for the private sector to “make money” instead of developing the airport itself.
He claimed that the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) has sufficient funds to undertake the P107-billion deal submitted by partners Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructures Ltd. of India.
“Miaa has sufficient equity to develop the project by itself. For some reason since 2016, they removed the development of Naia from the priority list of projects. I cannot think of a reason why it was taken out conveniently despite having enough money—except that they are making it convenient for Miaa to not spend the people’s money properly so that they can invite private individuals to make money off of our passengers,” Nograles said.
He added that the government has made it easier for the private sector to bag the deal by sweetening the terms of the project.
“I would like to manifest that the 70-30 equity-debt finance requirement was renegotiated. And during a meeting on July 24, the minimum equity requirement was lifted because the private group cannot raise necessary equity of at least P32 billion. It’s scary if we pursue this,” he said.
Nograles added: “It reveals that we are giving extra sweeteners to the private sector. The original proposal was with an 18-year concession period. During the July 24 meeting, they changed it to 25 years to allow the private concessionaire to make more money. It doesn’t look right. I think we have to consider scrutinizing the billions of pesos in Miaa and we must consider that we do not have to pursue the expansion through these onerous and unfair provisions.”
Project terms
TRANSPORTATION Undersecretary Reuben Reinoso noted that the group has been required by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) to submit additional financial documents to supplement the proposal.
“The ICC technical board is requesting for additional documentary proof of their financial capability,” he said. “It’s really up to the Neda ICC to prescribe a final deadline. Miaa is trying to compel the proponent to submit it as soon as possible so they can forward the requested document to the ICC technical board.”
For his part, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade noted that the sweeter terms were not only extended to the Gmr-megawide tandem, but was also offered to the original proponent of the project, the Naia Consortium.
“Because of the pandemic, the recovery at this time was greatly affected. That’s why the original proponents requested for a change. In the discussions what was reached was not change the financial numbers, but give an extension of time to help the recover investments,” he said.
To recall, Naia Consortium— then a group of 7 conglomerates that later on became 6—was denied of the project, after it did not reach an agreement with the government over its provisions.
It had the project under its belt for about 2 years. Gmr-megawide then submitted the same project under different terms. It is now being studied by the government.
A representative from Gmrmegawide said the current proposal is “based on the provisions required by the DOTR” for unsolicited airport deals. The representative said the provisions of the proposal may change depending on the negotiations with the government.
Based on its previous proposal submitted in March 2018, Gmrmegawide proposes to spend $3 billion to redevelop and expand Naia.
The multibillion-dollar proposal is divided into several phases—the first 6 years of the operations would focus on the expansion of the existing terminals, the optimization of the current runways and the capacity expansion of the whole airport complex.
Immediately upon takeover, the group proposes to construct fulllength parallel taxiways for both runways, an additional rapid-exit taxiway for the primary runway, the extension of a second runway and the provision of maximum aircraft stands.
These solutions will increase airfield capacity to 950 to 1,000 aircraft movements per day, a 35-percent increase from the current 730 aircraft movements daily.
Within the first 2 years, the group will rehabilitate and expand the existing terminals, which will roughly double the space and result in over 700,000 square meters of terminal area.
By that time, the airport will be able to handle as many as 72 million passengers annually, a huge jump from the current 30 million annual passenger capacity.
The old proposal carries a concession period of 18 years.
Gmr-megawide is the developer of the new Mactan-cebu International Airport.