THE GOVERNMENT will open the door in June to companies that intend to outdo Manila North Tollways Corp.’s (MNTC) P18-billion offer to link the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) and South Luzon Expressway (SLEx), officials from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said on Tuesday.
This follows the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board’s decision in February to move forward with the unsolicited proposal, which involves the construction of an elevated road connecting the two expressways.
MNTC is the tollways unit of infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) that currently operates NLEx and had long been seeking to connect that expressway to the southern corridor exiting Metro Manila.
“That was already approved by NEDA Board, so now we can publish ITB (invitation to bid) within the year,” DPWH Secretary Rogelio L. Singson said on the sidelines of Euromoney’s Philippine Investment Forum in Makati City on Tuesday.
Asked for more details, Ariel C. Angeles, officer-in-charge and director of the Public-Private Partnership Service of DPWH, said in a mobile phone reply: “We hope to publish in June. We are just sorting out some terms with MNTC.”
In February, the NEDA Board ruled that the contract should be bid out via Swiss challenge -- the course the government takes when dealing with unsolicited proposals, which requires an invitation to make competing offers while giving the original proponent the right to match them.
MNTC first submitted an unsolicited proposal in 2010 for the connector road, and on Jan. 21 last year, signed a joint venture agreement with state-run Philippine National Construction Corp. -- the holder of the NLEx franchise -- to build that road.
But several months later, the Department of Justice (DoJ) issued an opinion on the joint venture proposal, saying that the NEDA Board approval of the agreement between MNTC and PNCC is “without factual basis or justification.”
The DoJ opinion also stated that the DPWH, under Section 3 of the Build-Operate-Transfer Law, could proceed with the consideration of the unsolicited proposal.
The MNTC proposal was then again subjected for NEDA review.
“As of now, no companies have expressed interest,” Mr. Singson said, though he noted that absence of interest thus far is no reason not to proceed with a Swiss challenge, “because that’s the legal process.”
Sought for comment, Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) President Ramoncito S. Fernandez said on the sidelines of the same event: “We’re ready for the Swiss. We are just waiting for the government to invite proponents. We’ll fight for it.”
The original unsolicited proposal of MNTC involved a 13.5-kilometer elevated road that will connect North and South Luzon expressways, including a five-kilometer common alignment from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) to Buendia Avenue in Makati City.
Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., which is also pursuing its own proposed connector road project with San Miguel Corp., has already obtained financing for the common alignment portion of the road. The San Miguel group’s P26.5-billion Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 project is a six-lane 14.8-kilometer expressway, from Buendia Avenue in Makati City to Balintawak in Quezon City, connecting the SLEx to NLEx.
Malacañang approved the contract for the Skyway Stage 3 project in September 2013.
The NLEx-SLEx connector road would link C-3 in Caloocan City to the PUP campus in Sta. Mesa, Manila. Parts of the segment would run above the lines of the Philippine National Railways.
MNTC is the tollways unit of infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) that currently operates NLEx and had long been seeking to connect that expressway to the southern corridor exiting Metro Manila.
“That was already approved by NEDA Board, so now we can publish ITB (invitation to bid) within the year,” DPWH Secretary Rogelio L. Singson said on the sidelines of Euromoney’s Philippine Investment Forum in Makati City on Tuesday.
Asked for more details, Ariel C. Angeles, officer-in-charge and director of the Public-Private Partnership Service of DPWH, said in a mobile phone reply: “We hope to publish in June. We are just sorting out some terms with MNTC.”
In February, the NEDA Board ruled that the contract should be bid out via Swiss challenge -- the course the government takes when dealing with unsolicited proposals, which requires an invitation to make competing offers while giving the original proponent the right to match them.
MNTC first submitted an unsolicited proposal in 2010 for the connector road, and on Jan. 21 last year, signed a joint venture agreement with state-run Philippine National Construction Corp. -- the holder of the NLEx franchise -- to build that road.
But several months later, the Department of Justice (DoJ) issued an opinion on the joint venture proposal, saying that the NEDA Board approval of the agreement between MNTC and PNCC is “without factual basis or justification.”
The DoJ opinion also stated that the DPWH, under Section 3 of the Build-Operate-Transfer Law, could proceed with the consideration of the unsolicited proposal.
The MNTC proposal was then again subjected for NEDA review.
“As of now, no companies have expressed interest,” Mr. Singson said, though he noted that absence of interest thus far is no reason not to proceed with a Swiss challenge, “because that’s the legal process.”
Sought for comment, Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) President Ramoncito S. Fernandez said on the sidelines of the same event: “We’re ready for the Swiss. We are just waiting for the government to invite proponents. We’ll fight for it.”
The original unsolicited proposal of MNTC involved a 13.5-kilometer elevated road that will connect North and South Luzon expressways, including a five-kilometer common alignment from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) to Buendia Avenue in Makati City.
Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., which is also pursuing its own proposed connector road project with San Miguel Corp., has already obtained financing for the common alignment portion of the road. The San Miguel group’s P26.5-billion Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 project is a six-lane 14.8-kilometer expressway, from Buendia Avenue in Makati City to Balintawak in Quezon City, connecting the SLEx to NLEx.
Malacañang approved the contract for the Skyway Stage 3 project in September 2013.
The NLEx-SLEx connector road would link C-3 in Caloocan City to the PUP campus in Sta. Mesa, Manila. Parts of the segment would run above the lines of the Philippine National Railways.
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