Local, foreign groups claim price of Ro-Ro ports too high

MANILA, Philippines—Local construction firms Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co. Inc. and EEI Corp. have told the Department of Transportation and Communications that they could build roll-on, roll-off (Ro-Ro) ports for a third of the price quoted by French company Eiffel Matiere.

German construction giant AOM also submitted a similar estimate, saying that it could build high-quality Ro-Ro ports for much less than the P143 million that the government had agreed to pay for French-made ports.

A ranking DOTC official said the estimates from at least seven companies were taken as part of an ongoing review of the contract for the Greater Maritime Access (GMA) Ports Project, a program of the previous administration.

Initial results of the review showed that each of the 72 Ro-Ro ports to be built under the project might have been overpriced by as much as 138 percent.

The DOTC’s own estimates, based on local steel prices, showed that ports made locally could be built for P60 million each.

Eiffel Matiere, which is backed by the French government, had questioned the computations the DOTC used, saying that this did not take into account the state-of-the-art technology used for the construction.

The company insisted that its ports were not overpriced.

“But as it turns out, our estimate may have been too much,” said the DOTC official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter yet pending the release of the final report on the review.

He said companies from Australia and the United States had also submitted their own estimates. “They all said they can build ports of the same quality for P40 million to P50 million each,” he said.

The project is funded by a low interest-bearing P11-billion overseas development assistance (ODA) loan from private French bank BNP Paribas.

As an ODA-funded program, it was exempted from the need to hold a competitive bidding to find the best contractor for the project. Instead, BNP Paribas was allowed to choose its own supplier.

Aside from the ports being too expensive, estimates by the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) showed that the country needed no more than 30 ports, not 72 as prescribed under the project.