P3.8-B refund sought for unusable MRT trains

Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stocks Co. of China should refund the P3.8 billion the government paid for the supply of trains for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT-3), which turned out to be incompatible with the system.

In a statement, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said yesterday that Dalian should refund the full cost and the Chinese firm should be blacklisted from all government projects.

“Cancelling the contract and returning the coaches are not enough. What we have here is a supplier who knowingly supplied equipment that is not suitable for the MRT. We can’t just let them get away with it with no penalties whatsoever,” Pimentel said.

The trains were purchased by the Department of Transportation during the previous administration under the leadership of then secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya.

With the arrival of the coaches came the promise of an improvement in the critical mass transit system, which has been plagued by constant breakdowns due to poor maintenance.

These problems are being experienced almost daily by the commuters of the MRT-3, which runs along EDSA from Pasay City to Quezon City.

It was revealed by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) that the Dalian trains are not compatible with the signalling system of the MRT-3 and that even the weight of the coaches was beyond what was allowed.

Pimentel previously demanded the same refund from Sanofi Pasteur of France for the sale of the controversial dengue vaccine Dengvaxia to the government, which later turned out to put the students who were administered the drug at risk of severe dengue rather than prevent this from being contracted.

Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the Senate committee on public services, has repeatedly called the attention of the DOTr to decide on what to do with the trains since these have been lying idle for more than a year.

Poe said the DOTr should be prepared to give up trying to make those trains work with the system and just purchase new ones that are compatible as soon as possible.

She has also called for the prosecution of Abaya and the other officials involved in the purchase of the trains as well as the contracting of the service providers that have only caused the system to deteriorate.

The Maintenance Transition Team (MTT) of the MRT-3 has failed to deploy the required number of trains, more than a month after it took over the maintenance works of the rail system.

In the daily operations report of the MRT-3, it showed that the MTT can only deploy eight to 10 operational and running trains during peak and non-peak hours from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, 2018.

Aly Narvaez, media relations officer of the MRT-3, said the present condition of the trains has restricted them from producing the required 15 operational and running trains, which is less than the required 20 trains under the previous maintenance provider.

“Still 15 trains, but we admit that with the current condition of our trains, it is hard to meet it now,” Narvaez said.

The MTT’s failure to produce the required number of trains is causing long queues, crowded trains, delays in its headways and unloading incidents in various train stations from Pasay City to Quezon City.

The MRT-3’s report showed that only 10 operational and running trains were deployed from Jan. 27 to 30, nine trains each on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 and only eight trains on Feb. 2.

The MRT-3 terminated its contract with Busan Universal Rail Inc. (BURI) in November last year after it allegedly failed to procure the train’s spare parts and over its alleged poor performance.