Chelsea bid to modernize Davao Sasa Port hits snag

The expected grant of original proponent status (OPS) to the unsolicited proposal of Dennis Uy’s Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp. to modernize the Sasa port in Davao City has hit a snag as the proponent is being asked to fine tune its proposed engineering design.

Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) general manager Jay Daniel Santiago said the agency’s engineering group is in discussions with Chelsea to thresh out certain adjustments to its proposed engineering design for the development of the Davao Sasa port.

“So until and unless they resolve that, the engineering concerns of their proposal, that’s the only time we can proceed on processing it for purpose of granting the OPS. So we still do not have a timeline because the ball is still in their court to adjust the designs as required by our PPA engineering,” Santiago said.

“Once that is submitted and our engineering group is convinced on the feasibility of the design and compliance of the development plan of the PPA, then we can now proceed to evaluating it for OPS,” he said.

In an interview last January, Santiago said the unsolicited proposal may get the endorsement from the PPA by the end of the month or within the first half of February, as the agency would have already been able to determine the feasibility of the offer.

“PPA has a long term development plan for the ports, for the terminal, and we want to make sure that the proposal of the proponents will be compliant with the long term development plan because ultimately after the proposed concession, it would still be owned by government so we want to make sure that whatever they will do is consistent with the development plan of the government for those terminals. That is why we’re very critical on engineering design,” Santiago said.

Chelsea in August last year submitted a P11.2-billion unsolicited proposal to the PPA for the modernization of the Davao Sasa port.

The modernization of the Sasa port was part of the PPP program by the previous administration but was scrapped.