Where admin’s PPP is failing

This is in reaction to Rina Jimenez-David’s “A new airport for Cebu” (Opinion, 4/6/14) and Conrado R. Banal III’s “The cost is clear” (Business, 4/3/14). This may partake of a “postmortem” at this stage, but the observations presented here may still deserve further public thought.

The tremendous expectation of the citizenry from the adoption by the current Aquino administration of the PPP (public-private partnership) concept into the construction of public infrastructure and delivery of public services in its early days in Malacañang has been almost totally eroded.

The “negatives” far outweigh the “positives.” The most recent of these are the delays and controversies that engulfed the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA). Let me comment on some points from a construction professional’s vantage.

Problems in PPP implementation self-inflicted.  “Sloppy,” thus Sergio Osmeña III and Antonio Trillanes IV described the work of the PPP prequalification committees for the MCIA project.

A postqualification review is allowed by the rules, precisely to check on veracity and completeness of documents submitted by bidders, the Department of Transportation and Communications explained. By this “novel” procedure President Aquino’s technocrats have abandoned the time-tested single-stage pre-qualification process. In the latter, all participants so “prequalified” are deemed fully qualified, such that the sole consideration in the awarding of the contract is the most advantageous price.

The government has, by its own choice, placed itself in a position wherein other

matters—or their own omissions—may thwart price-based awarding of contracts.

Bidders’ claims re “no cost to government.” The action taken by Senator Osmeña, which called the attention of the public to the primary aspect of P-Noy’s PPP projects—that is, consumer/user protection—was timely and critical to the PPP program itself. The self-serving, fallacious claims of many PPP proponents that PPP projects entail “no cost to government” mislead the public and appear to disarm many in government. Senator Osmeña has served to reemphasize and refocus public attention on the basic truth in the PPP concept—that government in these transactions serve as “representatives of the consumers/public” as well as economic guarantors for them. Recent events such as those relating to Manila Water and MRT-3 contracts have revealed that PPP projects, once in operation, become onerous to consumers and are historically costly to government, in both

political and economic aspects.

“Daang matuwid?” Government has awarded P16.3 billion for the construction of school buildings. Note Megawide’s participation and some interesting arithmetic in this project.

Package A     P3.463 billion

Package B  P5.280 billion

Package C     P7.682 billion

Bidder proposals:

Package A  P3.446 billion (bidder: BF Corp.)

Package B     P5.230 billion           (Megawide)

Package C     P7.600 billion (Megawide)

Variances:

Package A   (-) 0.49 percent

Package B   (-) 0.95 percent

Package C   (-) 1.07 percent

Daang matuwid???

—ALFREDO V. ASUNCION,

[email protected]