The Aquino administration’s much touted, centerpiece public-private partnership (PPP) program aimed at improving the country’s lacking infrastructure would see only five projects finished in 2016.
According to the document distributed by the Investor Relations Office (IRO) during yesterday’s Philippine Economic Briefing, “at least five projects completed” were among the goals that the PPP Center wanted to achieve at the end of President Aquino’s term.
The other 2016 targets of the PPP Center included a “robust” pipeline of PPP projects—at least 50 in the pipeline in various stages of the project cycle; at least 15 PPP contracts signed, as well as at least 10 infrastructure projects handed over to the private sector for operation and maintenance (O&M).
The PPP Center is also looking at 39 projects with project development and monitoring facility (PDMF) support by 2016.
According to PPP Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao, the five PPP projects that would have been complete in 2016 are two school projects worth P20.14 billion, the P1.72-billion Automatic Fare Collection System (AFCS) for the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Mass Rail Transit (MRT) systems, the P2.01-billion Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway (SLEx) link road, and P15.52-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Expressway.
According to the IRO document, full system acceptance of the AFCS is on September 2015. The two phases of PPP for School Infrastructure projects wherein a total of 13,670 classrooms will be constructed in Regions I, II, III, IV-A, X, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), meanwhile, would be completed in November this year and April 2015.
The Daang Hari-SLEx link is due for completion in December this year. As for the Naia Expressway Phase 2, it is expected to be finished in October 2015.
Canilao explained that completing more than five PPP projects in the next two years might be difficult as a number of those currently being rolled out were huge infrastructure projects that would take a longer period of time to be finished, including the P17.52-billion construction of the new passenger terminal building of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA), the P5.69-billion modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center and the P64.9-billion extension of LRT Line 1 to Bacoor, Cavite.
These big infrastructure projects are nonetheless expected to be in advanced stages of construction by 2016, Canilao said.