Congress body to endorse Napocor sale plan this week

The Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) is expected to endorse to President Arroyo the privatization plan for National Power Corp. (Napocor) before Congress goes on recess on March 15, Energy Secretary Vincent S. Perez said.

But the pre-marketing roadshow for the sale of transmission assets of Napocor will have to be deferred, he added.

"Originally, we planned to have a roadshow by March. But, we decided not to push through with it," he said, adding that they have "plenty of things to do."

However, he said they are trying to stick to the original target of privatizing the transmission assets of Napocor by June or July.

"There are a lot of things that we need to do first. We have to do the transferring of Napocor to PSALM; getting creditors’ consent; on Transco (National Transmission Co.), we have to prepare a transmission development plan (TDP); on Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), they have to review the unbundling and the tariffs that was submitted in December; Napocor also has to start negotiating the transitional supply contract; and then WESM (wholesale electricity spot market) rules should be finished by April," he said.

PSALM president Edgardo Del Fonso said they have deferred temporarily the roadshow for Transco to allow the requirements of the sale to be completed. "There is no definite schedule for the roadshow. Actual roadshow should take place after we completed all the requirements. Until the approval of the privatization plan, we can’t go out until we can tell the people what we are selling and we have authority to sell it. I think that’s the basic that we need to do," he said.

Del Fonso said they may opt to do a pre-marketing roadshow. "Since we already have the IRR, we can start talking to the potential investors. In fact, our roadshows are more of investors’ briefing and investors’ discussion and not a formal roadshow," he said.