NEWS

By Richmond Mercurio

MANILA, Philippines — The consortium of seven conglomerates seeking to rehabilitate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has been given two months to follow exactly the Clark International Airport template, otherwise it is back to zero for them.

Transportation Undersecretary for planning Ruben Reinoso said the NAIA Consortium has 60 days to comply with the order from the time that its P102-billion proposal to rehabilitate, upgrade, expand, operate and maintain the NAIA for 15 years was returned last week.

“The Department of Transportation (DOTr)’s policy is for original proponent to comply with requirements within 60 days,” Reinoso said.

“Otherwise, we withdraw their OPS (original proponent status) and entertain other proposals,” he said.

The group of Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastrucuture Ltd. of India has also previously submitted a $3-billion unsolicited proposal to upgrade and rehabilitate NAIA.

The NAIA Consortium, composed of Aboitiz InfraCapital, AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Alliance Global Group Inc., Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., Filinvest Development Corp., JG Summit Holdings Inc., and Metro Pacific Investments Corp., however, has been granted the OPS by the Manila International Airport Authority board in Aug. 6, 2018, and was officially awarded with the OPS on Sept. 13.

The OPS gives the group the right to match offers once a Swiss challenge is undertaken for the project.

After months of negotiations and an April 30 ultimatum, a revised proposal from the consortium was finally accepted by Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade last May, allowing the project to move forward to the National Economic and Development Authority.

However, last week, the government returned to the NAIA Consortium its unsolicited offer following a decision to require all proponents of airport projects to pattern their draft concession agreements after the operation and maintenance deal for Clark International Airport.

Tugade has ordered the return to their respective proponents of all airport unsolicited proposals which have been granted the OPS, except for the Bulacan airport which is a greenfield project, to align them with the Clark International Airport’s contract.

Reinoso said the consortium is required to pattern the concession agreement after Clark International Airport operations and maintenance contract, with same provisions and language.

“The principles were aligned before. But what is asked of them now is to have the exact provisions. The explanation of the proponent before was the configuration of NAIA with Clark is different so it cannot be exactly the same. But now, we want to have the same, exact configurations and provisions,” Reinoso said last week.

Source: PhilStar.com