Impsa affirms commitment to $470-M CBK project

Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona SA (Impsa) Asia Ltd. affirmed yesterday its commitment to rehabilitate the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) hydroelectric plant despite allegations of wrongdoing continuously leveled against it by several groups.

The Argentinean firm has been awarded the controversial $470 million contract.

The firm vehemently denied having used embattled Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez to offer a $14-million bribe to former President Joseph Estrada or anybody else in exchange for the approval of the power contract.

"Jimenez has never been involved in the deal which began during the time of former President Fidel V. Ramos in 1993," Francisco Ruben Valenti, Impsa Asia Ltd. president, said in a statement.

Impsa, he said, followed the build-operate-transfer (BOT) process to the letter and did not resort to bribery to win the award of the project.

He disclosed that there are now more than 2,000 personnel working round-the-clock in the CBK complex and that Filipinos are actually already enjoying a reliable 400 megawatts of the electric power services provided by CBK pumped storage power complex. By the middle of 2003, the plants will be able to generate the full 750-megawatt capacity.

Impsa said that investments have now reached $400 million, $115 million of which was used for the rehab of Kalayaan I. The first disbursement amounted to $161 million.

"All these figures can be validated by official records. Thus, only those who wish to see this project fail could believe the yarn that we are charging more than we are spending," Impsa asserted.

"In good faith, we started work by advancing our own money despite uncertainties whether we would be allowed to do so. But there are still good men who stood by us and who never wilted under tremendous political and economic pressure. And it is because of them that we will be here until we get our job done," Impsa added.