PMO remits P554M to gov’t from Jan-Sept asset sales

The Privatization and Management Office (PMO) generated a total of P554.4 million from the sale of government properties along with cash dividends and other forms of revenue for the first nine months of 2017, the Department of Finance said on Monday.

In a press statement, the finance department quoted a report prepared by acting chief privatization officer Gerard Chan to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III detailing the PMO’s total remittances to the Bureau of Treasury as of Sept. 30, 2017, excluding P2.8 million in authorized retentions.

Last month, the PMO turned over to the treasury bureau a check for P289.4 million, marking the biggest amount remitted by PMO
to date for the January-September 2017 collection period.

The amount represents proceeds from the sale of shares in Asean Finance Corp. and a special cash dividend from Semirara Mining Corp.

PMO remittances for this period also included proceeds of lease, landholdings covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, interest income and other asset sales.

In the first six months of the Duterte administration, total PMO remittances to the government reached P286.4 million.

Since 1986, the government has undertaken a privatization program initially under the Asset Privatization Trust (APT) and the interagency Committee on Privatization (COP)with the intention of reducing the size of the government corporate sector by limiting government corporations to areas where private sector involvement is not feasible.

The term of the COP and APT expired on Dec. 31, 2000, and was replaced by the PMO.

To date, the government’s privatization efforts have generated over P200 billion in revenues from the sale of almost 500 state-owned assets and corporations. —DAXIM L. LUCAS