Busan Universal Rail Inc., the maintenance provider of Metro Rail Transit Line 3, on Thursday assured the public of safe and reliable train service despite the ongoing dispute with the executives of the Transportation Department.
“BURI once again reiterates its commitment in partnership with the DOTr-MRT3 to serve the riding public to the best of its ability, with full knowledge that it had been compliant with its contractual obligations, despite having been repeatedly cast in a bad light by [Transportation Undersecretary for rail Cesar] Chavez, for motives and reasons known only to him,” the company said in a statement.
Busan earlier filed graft charges against Chavez, senior technical assistant Hernando Cabrera and Jorgette Bellen, program head of Uici-Seoul Metro-Dong-IL-JF Cancio Joint Venture Program, for allegedly delaying the payment of BURI’s monthly billings.
BURI claimed that unpaid billings hit P176 million for services already rendered to the DOTr-MRT3 in the maintenance component of the contract.
Chavez, however, refuted claims by BURI that it was being denied payments, saying that the government was withholding payments because the company had failed to submit necessary documents.
Chavez said the Philippine government would withhold the payments to BURI until it completed the submission of documents and reports, as required under the maintenance contract and by government accounting and auditing rules and regulations.
“We are not denying payments to BURI but only withholding them until the company submits all documents necessary before any payment by the government is released to them. It is based on contract, and government policy on public accountability,” he said.
Chavez said BURI had no pending billing except that of amounting to P59 million on withheld payments covering the period September 2016 to November 2016.
“The evidence of BURI’s failure to provide the service it was commissioned to do is clear enough. In 2016, the MRT-3 suffered 649 service interruptions and passenger unloading incidents,” he said.
BURI earlier urged the Transportation Department to investigate why technical glitches and service interruptions continued to persist despite proper maintenance of Line 3.
BURI pressed for the conduct of the said probe “to confirm that the MRT3 design flaws are the primary reason for the recurring service interruptions of the system”.
The service provider said that during the first year of MRT3 operations in 2000 when the trains were all brand new, it recorded 1,492 glitches. The number of glitches reached 1,927 in 2008 and 2,199 in 2009.
BURI said the original system flaws compounded by overloading and excessive vibrations and poor track condition resulted in the continuing occurrence of glitches and stoppages.
BURI said despite these recurring problems, it successfully minimized the occurrence of glitches to 992 as of mid-June in 2017 from 2,776 in 2015.