“NLEx and SLEx Connector Road is up for NEDA-ICC (Investment Coordination Committee) to report the negotiations that have been concluded between DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) and the original proponent,” Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao said in an interview after the inauguration of the Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway last Friday.She said the NEDA body will meet “in two weeks time or three weeks time.”

In a separate interview, Ariel C. Angeles, officer-in-charge and director of the PPP Service of the DPWH, said the result of negotiations between the government team and the Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) needs to be presented to the ICC for approval and then to NEDA Board for confirmation.

After the NEDA Board’s approval, the invitation to submit counteroffers for the PPP project will be issued.

The negotiations between the government and the Manila North Tollways Corp. were concluded on June 26, he noted, within the 80 days provided to settle the technical terms.

DPWH is planning to conduct the Swiss challenge in September, according to Mr. Angeles.

MNTC President Rodrigo E. Franco, in a text message, said the terms and conditions were successfully completed and are consistent with the original NEDA approval.

Among the main issues, he said, are the terms for the construction of the eight-kilometer road and the sharing of the right of way with Department of Transportation and Communications’ rail projects.

The NEDA Board in February ruled that the contract should be subject to a Swiss challenge — the course the government takes when dealing with unsolicited proposals. A challenge involves an invitation to make competing offers while giving the original proponent the right to match them.

Through the Swiss challenge, companies would have the chance to beat out the P18-billion offer of the MNTC, the tollways unit of infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) that currently operates NLEx and had long been seeking to connect that expressway to the south corridor.

MNTC first submitted an unsolicited proposal in 2010 for the connector road, and on Jan. 21 last year, signed a joint venture agreement with state-run Philippine National Construction Corp. — the holder of the NLEx franchise — to build that road.

But several months later, the Department of Justice (DoJ) issued an opinion on the joint venture proposal, saying that the NEDA Board approval of the agreement between MNTC and PNCC is “without factual basis or justification.”

The DoJ opinion also stated that the DPWH, under Section 3 of the Build-Operate-Transfer Law, could proceed with the consideration of the unsolicited proposal.

The MNTC proposal was then again subjected to NEDA review.

The original unsolicited proposal of MNTC involved a 13.5-kilometer elevated road that will connect North and South Luzon expressways, including a 5-kilometer common alignment from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) to Buendia Avenue in Makati City.

Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., which is also pursuing its own proposed connector road project with San Miguel Corp., has already obtained financing for the common alignment portion of the road. The San Miguel group’s P26.5-billion Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 project is a 6-lane 14.8-kilometer expressway, from Buendia Avenue in Makati City to Balintawak in Quezon City, connecting the SLEx to NLEx.

MPIC is one of three Philippine subsidiaries of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Philex Mining Corp. Hastings Holdings, Inc. — a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. — maintains interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. —Kathryn Mae P. Tubadeza

Source: http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Economy&title=connector-road-swiss-challenge-reviewed-in-aug.&id=112373