5 PPP projects to be auctioned

MANILA, Philippines—Even with less than four months left in the year, the government has lined up five projects from the public-private partnership list to be auctioned to interested investors before the year ends.

Since the PPP program was launched last year, the government has yet to auction a project. The operations and maintenance contracts for the Light Rail Transit 1 and the Edsa Metro Rail Transit 3 was being touted to be the first, but it was shelved indefinitely to give Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II time to study the projects. He took over the reins at the Department of Transportation and Communications last July.

The government has only announced the possible auction of the Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway Road construction project as well as Phase II of the Vaccine Self-Sufficiency Project. The Daang-Hari project, according to Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo, already had 20 interested bidders and should be awarded before year’s end. The vaccine project was not part of the original 10 priority PPP projects identified when the program was launched.

Domingo said it was still possible to bid out five more projects in the remaining months of the year, adding that the auction of PPP projects should pick up in the coming months.

“We fixed the process and set the policies. We want to make sure that the projects we award will go smoothly,” he told the Inquirer.

He said the original target of 10 projects to be auctioned within a year of the PPP program launch was mostly “aspirational,” with more emphasis to be placed on ensuring that the bidding and awarding processes would go as smoothly as possible.

Two months ago, PPP Center director Al Vitangcol III said as many as nine projects were lined up for bidding during the remainder of the year, with most of the auctions to take place within the fourth quarter, particularly in December.

Projects that could still be included in the 2011 bidding list, he said, were the P6.8-billion New Bohol (Panglao) airport project, the P8.85-billion LRT Line 2 East extension, the P83.25-billion LRT Line 1 South extension, the P4.14-billion Puerto Princesa airport development project, the P450- to P675-million-a-year Laguindingan Airport O&M contract, and the P6.88-billion New Legaspi airport development.