Megawide group submits ‘best’ ITS-Southwest offer

A consortium led by Megawide Construction Corp. edged out the only other bidder, Filinvest Land Inc., and submitted the “best” offer for the government’s first transportation hub public-private partnership (PPP) deal, known as the Integrated Transport System-Southwest project.

Bidding results at the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Tuesday showed that Megawide-led MWM Terminals offered that government pay it an annual fee of P100 million against Filinvest Land’s P650 million offer for the 35-year concession period.

MWM, which includes the Walter Mart retail group of billionaire Henry Sy, and Filinvest each offered an annual grantor payment, in which government pays an annual fee, instead of a yearly concession payment, the opposite where the winner pays government for the right to undertake a project.

The concession payment is typical for projects with high commercial value, like the P17.5-billion Mactan Cebu International Airport, which Megawide also won with partner GMR Infrastructure of India last year, and the automated fare collection system for Metro Manila’s railways, which was bagged by an Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. consortium.

In the case of the annual grantor payment, the lowest amount wins, but the DOTC stopped short of naming any winner Tuesday morning.

DOTC Undersecretary Jose Lotilla said that while they may name a winner within the day, the formal award was still subject to final approval of Transportation secretary Joseph Abaya, who was traveling on Tuesday.

The ITS is meant to create intermodal hubs where provincial buses would disembark passengers to transfer to other in-city modes of transport such as elevated railways, city buses and UV Express vans. The move was aimed at easing congestion within Metro Manila.