Still no takers for P2.4-B MRT 3 contract

MANILA, Philippines - The more than half a billion passengers using the Metro Rail Transit line 3 (MRT 3) would have to contend with more frequent breakdowns as no bidders showed up during yesterday’s bidding for the P2.4-billion contract to maintain the ageing mass transit system along EDSA.

Michael Arthur Sagcal, spokesperson of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), said in a text message that the agency’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) did not receive a single bid for the project yesterday. “No groups submitted bids,” Sagcal said.

The first auction in 2014 was also declared a failure after no one offered a bid.

According to Sagcal, the BAC would convene to determine further adjustments to the maintenance contract of MRT-3.

“The BAC will have to declare a failure of bid and conduct a mandatory review in accordance with rules, to determine what further adjustments should be made in order to make the project acceptable to interested groups,” Sagcal said.

The 16.9-kilometer mass transit system along EDSA was constructed as part of an integrated strategy to alleviate traffic congestion along EDSA. The rail system had a fleet of 73 modern and air-conditioned rail cars built by CKD Doprovni System of Prague in the Czech Republic.

It was completed in July 2000 with a design capacity of 350,000 passengers a day but it now services around 540,000 passengers per day or about 55 percent its design capacity.

The DOTC has decided to bid out a longer maintenance contract as the current one-year contract awarded to a maintenance provider is too short. It has extended the one-year maintenance contract of Autre Potre Technique Global Inc. (APT) that expired last Sept. 5.