Completion of MPIC connector road delayed

Metro Pacifc Tollways Corp., which operates North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), said a proposed P18-billion “connector road” linking NLEx with the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx) in Metro Manila would not be finished by the time President Aquino steps down in 2016 due to regulatory delays.

Ramoncito Fernandez, president of Metro Pacific Tollways, told reporters that they were still gunning for a “partial” opening of half of the tollroad, which involves the construction of an 8-kilometer elevated expressway from C-3 in Caloocan City until PUP Sta. Mesa in Manila, by the end of the president’s term.

“If we can get approval in the next two or three months, we can open it up until España. That’s about half of it,” Fernandez said on the sidelines of the launch of an electronic payment system for Manila-Cavite Expressway, which Metro Pacific Tollways also operates.

The company was earlier expecting the nod of the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) by the first quarter of 2014 and to start the construction of the massive expressway—which aims to ease Metro Manila traffic congestion—by the third quarter, Fernandez had said.

TRB executive director Edmundo Reyes Jr. said during the same event that certain legal issues were holding up the approval process.

Reyes cited private sector opposition to the mode of implementation of the expressway, which was originally made as an unsolicited proposal and would thus require a competitive challenge.

The government later said the project structure should be “shifted” to a joint venture with state-run Philippine National Construction Corp., which holds the franchise for NLEx and SLEx.

“We’ve submitted a legal query to the Department of Justice,” Reyes said, while adding that this would potentially spell delays to the full completion of the project by the end of Aquino’s term.  Apart from the 90-km NLEx and the Manila-Cavite Expressway, Metro Pacific Tollways is in continued talks with the government, which has yet to complete the turnover of the 93.7-km Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway to the toll road operator. Most of its flagship projects are still located in the north of Metro Manila but its connector road would bridge the gap between its main assets and its expansion plans in the south.

San Miguel Corp. and Indonesia Citra Group, which operate SLEx and the Skyway elevated tollroad, are separately building a north to south elevated connector road, which the government said could be completed by 2016.