Del Mar: It won’t delay project

CEBU, Philippines - The congressional inquiry that will be made into the controversial bidding for the multi-billion-peso Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) rehabilitation project will be made to expedite, and not to delay, the resolution of issues raised by one of the project bidders.

Cebu City North District Rep. Raul del Mar made the clarification following some criticisms that the move could just delay further the implementation of the project.

The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) - Pre-Qualification, Bids and Awards Committee has delayed the awarding of the P17.5-billion project to any bidder, pending the completion of a post-qualification review of the highest financial bidder for alleged violation of the rule against conflict of interest under the bid rules.

“We don’t know how long it will take them when to complete this post bid review specially in the light of this complaint coming into the picture,” del Mar said.

Late last year, the consortium of Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure Ltd. gave the highest bid for MCIA Public Private Partnership project, which includes the construction of a new passenger terminal plus the renovation of the existing terminal.

However, last January 2 the consortium of Filinvest-Changi, which submitted the second-highest bid in the project, passed a letter and raised the possible violation of Megawide-GMR group for conflict of interest.

This prompted del Mar and six other Cebu congressman to file House Resolution 782 directing the Committee in Transportation to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the complaints of conflict of interest and questionable financial capacity and other possible violations on qualification requirements against the highest financial bidder in the bidding of the MCIA PPP project.

“This is meant to assist the process so we can resolve the issue as soon as possible,” del Mar told The FREEMAN.

The House Committee on Transportation is set to schedule the hearing this week.

To be invited during the inquiry are the representatives of DOTC-PBAC, the consortium of Filinvest-Changi who is the complainant and the Megawide-GMR group.

Del Mar expressed fear that if the issue is not resolved, the complainant might go to court that would cause “greater delay” of the project.

“We are all concerned to remove all obstacles which will delay the project, we are calling this inquiry to expedite so we can move ahead,” del Mar added.

Meanwhile, the GMR-Megawide consortium claimed that it has already provided detailed clarifications and documentations to the PBAC on the issue of an alleged conflict of interest.

“We would like to state that the allegation made by Filinvest, that there is a conflict of interest between GMR-Megawide Consortium and the First Philippine Consortium because there is a common director in the two companies is completely baseless and without any substance whatsoever,” it said in statement.

“We have full faith in the due process being followed by the PBAC and would much prefer that the PBAC is allowed to follow the due process without undue interference being exerted by Filinvest,” it added.  (FREEMAN)