Senate to summon Perez on Impsa

A Senate committee looking into the controversial $450-million power plant rehabilitation contract awarded to Argentine power firm Impsa (Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima) decided yesterday to invite resigned justice secretary Hernando Perez to its next hearing.

The panel made the decision after a lawyer involved in the project testified that foreign banks that provided the bulk of the funds that Impsa needed sought government guarantees for their loan repayments and that such guarantees were included in the legal opinion that Perez issued upholding the validity of the contract.

Ipapatawag namin si Secretary Perez sa susunod na hearing. Sa tingin ko, maliwanag na kung ano ang nangyari (We will invite Secretary Perez to the next hearing. I think we now know what really happened)," Sen. John Osmeña, committee chairman, told reporters.

He said Andres Santamaria, the lawyer of the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan project, testified that the banks sought the guarantees through CBK lawyers who brought the lenders’ proposal to the attention of the Department of Finance (DOF), the agency that is empowered to issue government guarantees.

He said the DOF rejected the banks’ request but that the latter brought their proposal to the Department of Justice then headed by Perez.

Maliwanag na maliwanag na yung hinihingi ng lenders na tinanggihan ng DOF ay nakuha nila kay Secretary Perez (So it’s clear that what the lenders wanted, which the DOF reject, they got from Secretary Perez)," he said.

Perez has denied receiving any money in connection with the Impsa contract. Both Jimenez and the Argentine firm have also denied giving any bribe.

Osmeña’s committee has subpoenaed Impsa’s foreign lenders through Citibank, which however won’t accept the summonses, claiming Citibank is just the lenders’ "collateral agent" and not their representative.

Impsa officials yesterday denied allegations hurled by Sen. Sergio Osmeña that company lawyers had inserted onerous provisions in the contract to build the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan hydroelectric power plant.

"Our lawyers had nothing to do with inserting any provisions in the CBK contract pertaining to the so-called direct state guarantee. There is no direct guarantee to speak of in the first place," the Impsa officials said in a statement.

"Senator Osmeña’s allegations are not only inaccurate, they are malicious," the officials added.