Metro Pacific refuses to budge over SCTex deal

Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) may have yielded to a government review, but it will not agree to any significant change in its concession contract for the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx).

“That contract has already been perfected,” said MPIC president Jose Ma. K. Lim, referring to the SCTEx deal.

“I don’t know what their (the Bases Conversion and Development Authority) position will be. They sent us a notice to terminate the contract, so it’s being reviewed,” Lim told reporters.

But the company is confident that the validity of its SCTEx deal will be upheld by the BCDA, Lim said, explaining that the Toll Regulatory Board and the Office of the Government Corporate Council had already approved the contract before it was signed by MPIC unit Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) and the BCDA.

MNTC won the 25-year contract for SCTEx last November. But the company has been operating the highway for more than a year on an interim basis.

Lim stressed that MNTC won the contract through a fair and competitive bidding.

Last week, MNTC revealed that the BCDA introduced last-minute changes in the SCTEx concession contract’s financial terms.

Under the contract’s original terms, the BCDA will get a 20-percent share from the road toll revenue.

But Lim believes that “the original structure of the agreement will be followed.”

If the review “results in drastic changes in the economic provisions, we won’t accept that,” he added.

Lim said the BCDA review would be completed within 30 days.

In undertaking the review, the BCDA last week said that it only hoped to ensure that “benefits for both the government and private sector” would be maximized.

Other government agencies and departments are also reviewing several projects that were approved by the previous administration for possible “taints of corruption.”