The contract signing for the Integrated Transport System-South public private partnership project with winning bidder Ayala Land Inc. was called off today due to schedule constraints on the government’s side.
Transportation secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said in a text message that there was a meeting in Malacañang that overlapped with the signing of the concession contract for the bus hub PPP, originally set at 2:00 p.m. in Makati City.
Abaya said he was “trying to reschedule” the signing “as soon as possible.”
READ: DOTC, ALI set to sign bus hub contract
The process would have paved the way for the construction of the PPP project, which is expected to be completed in 2018.
The ITS-South in Taguig will be one of three ITS projects that will be built around Metro Manila. The projects will serve as 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 projects are aimed at easing road congestion within Metro Manila.
Ayala Land was awarded the project last November, 2015 after the developer, a subsidiary of conglomerate Ayala Corp., emerged as the best bidder for the P4-billion deal.
To win the project, Ayala Land offered that government pay it P277.89 million annually to undertake the project, while the only other rival bidder, Filinvest Land Inc., offered that it be paid P1 billion per year.
The private concessionaire will operate and maintain the terminal for a period of 35 years.
Ayala Land earlier estimated that up to 4,000 buses and 160,000 passengers will feed into ITS South from South Luzon Expressway per day. CDG
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