PSALM mulls early bidding of Transco’s assets

lepileThe Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is firming up a plan to auction off within this month the maintenance and expansion (M & E) assets of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco), with or without the passage of the Transco franchise bill by congress.

"PSALM has to come up with Plan B. We need to come up with an option in case the passage of the Transco bill takes more time than expected," Transco vice president Roque Corpuz said in an interview.

Corpuz pointed out that the transmission assets will continue to be maintained by Transco/PSALM anyway, thus there is no need to wait for the Transco bill before carrying out the bidding. The Transco bill, which is still pending in the Senate, will allow it (Transco) to transfer its franchise to the winning bidder/concessionaire.

According to Corpuz, PSALM will come up with a decision on this proposed scheme on or before the end of this month. "We are discussing right now if we can carry out this option. We will announce it end of this month," he said.

Corpuz explained that should PSALM decide to bid out Transco before the bill is passed, it will re-bid and that the winning M & E bidder may be rewarded for its effort by being given the right of first refusal on the right to match the offer of the highest bidder.

The operation and maintenance (O & M) of Transco was supposed to have been auctioned off in the last quarter of 2002 but was delayed due to the non-passage of the Transco bill.

The government is expected to generate some $2 billion from the privatization of Transco.