Maynilad’s books open to public scrutiny

THIS REFERS to Rodolfo B. Javellana Jr.’s letter (“Maynilad’s questionable advance collections,” 8/11/12) asking that Maynilad Water Services Inc. (Maynilad) open its books.

Our financial statements are reviewed regularly by a reputable auditing firm, and submitted to the proper authorities where they can be accessed by interested parties. These statements may also be downloaded from our official website, www.mayniladwater.com.ph.

We even provided Javellana with copies of our financial statements when he met with our chief finance officer and head of our Legal and Regulatory Affairs office for seven hours last March. It is unfortunate that despite our efforts to be transparent and accommodating towards Javellana, he remains indifferent towards our clarifications.

He even continues to circulate false statements that have already been corrected and clarified in previous congressional hearings, to wit:

1. That we collected in advance for Laiban Dam. We do not engage in advance collections for water infrastructure projects, sewerage or even income taxes. We collect only for investments that we have already made. In fact, we have invested P101.5 billion (excluding inflation and cost of capital) and recovered only P83 billion. And our financial statements will show that there are no collections for unimplemented projects and therefore no payables reflected in our liabilities.

To be able to front-load our investments, we even had to take out multibillion loans from a number of banks. Obviously, these are private funds, not tax- payers’ money as Javellana claims.

2. That Laiban Dam is a mothballed project. Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System has already said that Laiban Dam is not a cancelled project. It is still on the table because MWSS wants to secure water supply for Metro Manila and nearby areas. Other water sources are also being considered because the government wants the best possible options for the consumers.

3. That our water infrastructure projects are awarded to our affiliated companies at very high costs. All our water infrastructure projects go through competitive, open bidding. Several corporations have been awarded contracts, including companies affiliated with Maynilad. And we disclose the awarding of related party contracts in our financial statements.

Furthermore, since one of our shareholders is affiliated with a company that is listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, we are even required to disclose such related party transactions.

4. That we have loans with the Asian Development Bank or with the Overseas Private Investment Corp. We do not have loans from these banks.

On the loans that we do have, the interests we pay out are not recoverable under the concession agreement. Consequently, such interests are not part of our tariff.

We hope that the above information finally puts these false and baseless issues to rest, so we can focus on securing water supply for our customers.