P50B PPP prison project up for bid

The government is seeking a willing and able private partner to undertake a P50.2-billion Regional Prison Facilities project to decongest packed facilities like the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa (pictured). INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/NINO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines–The government is seeking a willing and able private partner to undertake a P50.2-billion Regional Prison Facilities project to decongest packed facilities like the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa.

Concerned officials will be holding an investors’ forum Friday to seek bidders for the public-private partnership deal.

The project, which will be located at Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija, is just one of the over 60 projects worth about $27.3 billion that have been lined up under the government’s PPP program, a statement from the PPP Center yesterday showed.

The prison project will rquire private investors to finance, design, build and maintain the facility for a period of 23 years.

The planned facility is expected to accommodate 26,880 inmates, including staff housing and administrative buildings, areas for rehabilitation (sports, work and religious activity). ALso high security equipment will be installed, the PPP Center said.

According to an information memorandum issued by the Department of Justice and Bureau of Corrections, national penitentiary facilities “are severely congested and worn out.”

It added that, at the end of 2012, the New Bilibid prison had 21,106 inmates—134 percent above its designed capacity. It was a similar figure for the Correctional Institution for Women, which had 2,016 inmates, or 102 percent above the optimal capacity.

“The living conditions do not meet minimum international standards. This is also the case for New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa and the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, the transfer of which constitutes the motive of the present project,” the memorandum showed.

The government said interested bidders would have until May 6, to submit their pre-qualification documents. The submission of actual bids is expected on Aug. 14, with the awarding estimated by early September this year.

In recent weeks, the government has rolled out new PPP projects, including five provincial airport deals in Iloilo, Bacolod-Silay, Davao, Laguindingan and New Bohol in two separate “bundles.”

Several groups have expressed their interest to participate or at least review the newly released terms, including Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Megawide Construction Corp. That latter won the Mactan-Cebu International Airport PPP project with partner GMR Infrastructure of India.

The Aquino administration has so far awarded nine PPP projects. These are the Muntinlupa Cavite Expressway (formerly DaangHari-Slex Link Road), PPP for school infrastructure project (Phase 1), NAIA Expressway Project, PPP for school infrastructure project (Phase II), Modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center, Automatic Fare Collection System, Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the LRT-1 Cavite Extension and the Integrated Transport System-Southwest project.