Government on track with PPP program – Purisima

MANILA, Philippines –  The government is on track with its much-touted Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program for infrastructure, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said over the weekend.

“We’re still on track to bid out at least 10 projects,” Purisima said in an interview with ANC Business Nightly.

He said since there is a focus on solicited projects, it is taking time because the government is doing feasibility studies.

“It is the government that will have to do the feasibility studies. In some cases, the studies have been done but need to be updated. In others, it has not started at all. And since we’re doing several projects in one department, it has stretched the capacity of the departments in terms of sustaining these projects,” Purisima said.

Purisima assured that by the time President Aquino delivers his State of the Nation Address (SONA), these projects will be on stream already.

“By the end of the year, I think, the 10 projects would have been started already. The most probably would have winners already. In fact, we’re already looking at the next 10 projects next years,” Purisima said.

The first project to be bid out is the operation and maintenance contract for MRT 3 and LRT 1.

According to the Department of Transportation and Communications, the O&M runs for four years and will cover the 37.16-kilometer mass rail transit system, which runs from Monumento in Caloocan to Taft Avenue in Pasay.

The PPP, considered as the Aquino administration’s centerpiece economic program, aims to tap private sector participation in 80 large-scale infrastructure projects worth P740 billion that will be undertaken from 2011 and beyond.

Under the PPP scheme, the government would be tapping the help of the private sector to fund the different projects.

Aside from the O&M contract of the MRT-3 and LRT-1, the five initial projects under the PPP program are the P1.6-billion Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) Link Road; the P10.59-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Expressway Phase II; and the ambitious P21-billion North Luzon Expressway-SLEX Connector Project. –Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine Star)