Catastrophic consequence of corruption

Corruption kills or in this particular case, has the potential to kill in a catastrophic manner. We are talking here of a water aqueduct that delivers raw water from Ipo dam to the La Mesa reservoir that was completed by MWSS before it was privatized. The concrete aqueduct was supposed to last 50 years. Today, less than 15 years after it was commissioned, it is literally falling apart.

The situation is so bad that a consultant hired to look at the problem recommended that the two water concessionaires who are using the aqueduct be placed on emergency alert, ready "to respond to the potential for severe flooding." Metro Manila also stands to lose 50 percent of its raw water supply.

They have spent some P20 million patching things up figuratively and literally with Epoxy. But the consultant stressed "it is considered dangerous to proceed with the present methodologies for additional leak repairs on Aqueduct BNAQ-5 because of the recently revealed extent of its structural degradation."

In other words, the palliative measures being undertaken now "would be overwhelmingly inadequate in the face of catastrophic failure of Aqueduct BNAQ-5." The loss of half of Metro Manila's raw water supply is bad enough, the consultant also thinks there could be "significant damage to property locally, and possible loss of life at the site of repairs" if the poorly constructed aqueduct finally gives way due to structural failure.

Obviously, whoever built that massive public works project didn't do the work according to specifications and MWSS didn't have a quality control procedure that should have assured compliance. Some people must have made a lot of money pocketing the difference between the shoddy infrastructure delivered and the right specifications the taxpayer paid for.

The private concessionaires discovered the problem with the aqueduct a few months ago after they decided to conduct a walk through in an attempt to find out why the volume of raw water delivery was down. They found out from their consultant that there were "serious flaws in the original construction."

The consultant hired to assess the damage found out that the structural reinforcing of the concrete base slab was exposed extensively, causing the steel to rust. There is also extensive loss of structural concrete. They also found the walls of the aqueduct to be porous, with jets of water squirting directly from the walls. This was traced to poorly consolidated (low density) concrete.

The aggregates used in the concrete were river-washed smooth stones instead of crushed quarry stone. According to the consultant, smooth aggregates are associated with poor bonding with the cement matrix of the concrete. This leads to concrete of lower strength, and has contributed to its degradation and ultimate separation from the steel reinforcement.

We can go on and on with the technical report but all that will achieve is to make you feel a chilling sensation associated with fear and anger. It is obvious that public funds have been misappropriated, causing the original contractor to cut corners and deliver a dangerous public infrastructure.

As for the water concessionaires, they are facing the almost certain possibility of losing 50 percent of their already reduced water supply due to El Nino. Also, the cost of a new aqueduct estimated at over $150 million is not in their financial model that underlines their winning bid to run the concessions.

The painful lesson being learned by the private concessionaires the hard way is that they shouldn't have taken government's word on what to expect in terms of infrastructure already in place and promised to be in place. There have been many other instances of failure on the part of government to deliver as earlier indicated. One of the concessionaires also belatedly discovered they have 4,000 kilometers more of water lines that were not in the maps they based their bids on, throwing off assumptions in their financial model.

Will government now put up the money for a new aqueduct? What do we do in the meantime that an almost certain catastrophe is waiting to happen?

Quick action is obviously needed to save lives and protect Metro Manila's water supply. At the very least, the communities likely to be affected by the aqueduct's failure should be helped to protect themselves.

Whoever made money on this shoddy project should eventually be identified and punished if only because this type of corruption kills.

PPA solution

One of our readers, Edward Chua Cham, wrote to offer a solution to the PPA problem. Here is his e-mail. Since we have to honor the IPP contracts, the obvious solution is to get rid of the PPA by USING UP (and getting a revenue from) the unused power. Either that or give away the electricity for free... it’s paid for anyway. (The existing pricing scheme is against market forces. Electricity should be treated as a commodity. Encourage the use of (or switch to) electricity.

A simple solution is to give REBATES to consumers. The more you consume, the bigger the rebate. Say, 10 percent rebate (or discount) if your bill is P5,000/mo, 15 percent if P10,000/mo, ... 20 percent if P20,000/mo and so on. As an argument, when consumers find that using electric ranges for cooking is cheaper than using LPG, they will switch to electricity... I would.

Well, I sure wish the PPA issues were this simple. That's also the reason why it was so frustrating to watch and listen to FVR telling Gene Orejana on ANC that the excessive generating capacity was designed to power a robust economy and it is not his fault that Erap caused demand to decline by messing up the economy. Such intellectual dishonesty!

Actually, even if the economy is robust enough to cause demand for power to approximate the capacity of all the IPPs, we would still have a problem because FVR's boys failed to provide for transmission. We cannot even adequately transmit the limited demand we have now, what more something in the higher range? FVR's surplus capacity is meaningless in this context.

Also, what we are paying for now is capacity. If we actually produce electricity, that is another matter altogether because Napocor will have to provide for fuel. Any way you look at it, the taxpayers get screwed in Napocor.

But I think the suggestion of Mr. Chua Cham is worth thinking about. I think this is along the line of the suggestion of Sen. Manny Villar. If only plain and simple economics applies…

Maybe it does, as in no such thing as a free lunch. When someone goofs with demand projections or signs onerous contracts, the taxpayer and/or the consumer pays for it.

Philosophical

Dr. Ernie E is philosophical today.

A philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics. The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist."

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute.

Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all. His answer consisted of two words: "What chair?"

(Boo Chanco's e-mail address is [email protected])