Highway robbery
Posted on April 13, 2008 - Filed Under Governance
My brother Rey, who’s a New Jersey-based town planner and architect, forwarded an email with magnificent photos of the almost completed Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx).
The email’s original sender hints at possible kickbacks of 10% in the freeway’s construction which is obviously way under the 25% to 40% ‘going rate’ . . . an open secret going back more than a decade that has been publicly acknowledged and denounced by Salvador Enriquez who was Budget Secretary during the Ramos administration.
To be sure, there have been persistent charges of overpricing in the construction of the Japanese government-funded project. In fact, a joint congressional probe was conducted in 2006 by the Good Government and Oversight committees. However, ‘operators’ at BCDA may have succeeded in mollifying the solons because the project was allowed to proceed. But a special report 2 months ago by Newsflash is an eye opener:
“Apart from being Japan’s single biggest project loan to the Philippines, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project is also notable for another less edifying reason: It has the biggest cost overrun so far among the ODA-funded projects.
When NEDA approved the project in 1999, the cost was estimated at P15.3 billion. In 2000, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), which was implementing it, raised the cost estimate to P18.7 billion. NEDA approved this the following year.”But the lowest bid BCDA got when it auctioned off the contracts between September 2003 and January 2004 was P27 billion. Though it knew that costs had gone up to P25.1 billion, BCDA was hoping competition among the bidders would force down the price.”
NEDA refused to approve the higher cost, prompting BCDA to negotiate with the winning bidder to bring the price down to P20.1 billion. NEDA cleared the award to the Japanese companies but the latest indications are that the cost may go up to P32 billion.”
Which gives a new meaning to ‘highwaymen’.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.