Joint venture bags Zamcelco contract

Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative Inc. (Zamcelco) has awarded an investor-management contract to the joint venture of Crowninvestments Holding, Inc. and Desco Inc.

This after the joint venture committed to invest P2.5 billion in the debt-ridden electric cooperative.

This is almost five times the earlier bid of Comstech-Meralco joint venture, which withdrew from the contract with Zamcelco earlier this year.

Zamcelco has been saddled with over P1.5 billion in debt to power suppliers including PSALM, San Miguel Corp. and Alsons.

The P2.5-billion bid of the winning joint venture is expected to immediately solve the power woes of Zamboanga City, pay off Zamcelco’s debt and spur economic activity in the peninsula.

The joint venture deems that P2.5 billion will be enough to pay all existing obligations, increase capital and upgrade the facilities and improve the services of Zamcelco.

The joint venture is prepared to immediately deposit the bid amount it offered and proceed to professionally manage the cooperative free of any political influence.

Four other bidders submitted their qualification documents, namely: Davao Light and Industry, Nikolas Management Services, Filinvest Development Utilities and Comstech Services. However, these bidders did not submit any financial bid, perhaps backing off from the bid by the joint venture of Crowninvestments and Desco.

The residents of Zamboanga City are happy about these recent developments as they had been experiencing rotating power interruptions of up to four hours a day for the last several years.