MANILA, Philippines — The government is offering to the private sector the rehabilitation of Kennon Road leading up to Baguio City to help boost tourism activities in the city, the Public-Private Partnership Center (PPP Center) said yesterday.
A market sounding exercise was recently held for the improvement, operation, and maintenance of the 115-year-old toll road that is now prone to landslides.
This was meant to ascertain the level of interest, capability, and experience of the private sector top undertake the project; as well as to obtain suggestions from the private sector in the best methodology to be used for the project as well as possible alternative alignments before it is offered as a solicited PPP project.
“Interest from the private sector is high as various companies join the market sounding exercise for the rehabilitation/improvement and operations and maintenance of the Kennon Road,” PPP Center said in a statement.
This project involves upgrading and improvement of the landslide prone sections of Kennon Road that has a length of 33.7 kilometers.
This aims to prevent and mitigate the road slope disasters that frequently occur along Kennon Road such as rock slope collapse, road slip, and river erosion.
The private sector partners will provide solutions to identified disaster prone sites within the project site; replace the existing bridges with the current 10-ton truck capacity; as well as put up, maintain and operate a toll system.
Rehabilitation of the road will cut travel time and expand the tourism industry in Baguio City as well as in remote communities that can be reached via Kennon Road.
PPP Center said the Department of Public Works and Highways as the implementing agency aims to hurdle the approval process for the project by the third quarter of 2020 and invite the private sector to submit proposals also within the quarter.
Pre-qualification of prospective partners is slated before the end of the year while bid submission is set for the first quarter of 2021.