The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System is proceeding to open for public bidding the P12.2-billion Kaliwa Dam project in Rizal province despite instructions from Malacañang Palace to reconsider the unsolicited proposal of a Japanese group to construct the project under a cost-effective build-operate-transfer scheme, and at no cost to the government.
The project, once operational, will provide an additional 550 million liters per day to augment the 4,000 mld from Angat Dam in Bulacan that provides potable drinking water for the metropolis.
A letter sent and signed by Margarita Yu of the Presidential Management Staff to MWSS chairman Franklin Demonteverde showed that Malacañang wanted the water agency to reconsider the unsolicited proposal submitted by Japanese firm Global Utility Development Co. Ltd. in the form of the Project Consortium for the development of the Kaliwa Intake Weir Project.
The letter dated April 13, 2018 stated: “Pursuant to the President’s commitment for good governance, transparency and immediate action on matters that affect the welfare of the people, we respectfully endorse this matter to your good office and request that you update us of any developments with respect to the same.”
With a memorandum of understanding signed with MWSS, GUDC submitted the unsolicited proposal to the MWSS board in November 2009 to construct the dam.
Toshikazu Nomura, GUDC chief executive and director, said they were confident of the immediate resumption of their unsolicited proposal to MWSS, and the project would be commissioned in June 2022 within the period of Duterte administration, provided that the construction would start by October 2018, or once tge pre-construction activities and Swiss Challenge were completed.
“This is in the light of President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent pronouncement directing all government projects under the ‘Build, Build, Build’ program to go through the unsolicited proposal subject to the Swiss Challenge route and do away with the ‘lowest bid’ process,” Nomura said.
Nomura said that after waiting for a decade to jump-start the project, he was hoping that MWSS would finally honor the memorandum of understanding it signed with GUDC in 2009.
He said that at no cost to the government, GUDC would undertake the project through a private finance initiative with the Japanese group partnering with a local financial institution to cover the full amount of the project.
The Kaliwa Water Dam project of MWSS is among the 75 flagship projects under the ‘Build, Build, Build’ infrastructure program of the Duterte administration.