The Asian Development Bank granted a loan extension to the Department of Energy’s P1.73-billion Market Transformation Through the Introduction of Energy Efficient Vehicles (E-trike) Project until May 2019, a government official said.
“Our deadline was June 30, it was extended until May 2019,” Energy Undersecretary Leonido Pulido III said.
“… there is a period when you can draw from the funds of ADB, and that was supposed to be June 30, 2018. If it’s not extended, then we have a problem because we won’t be able to pay the supplier because that’s where the fund comes from, it’s from the loan from ADB,” Pulido said.
He said the department asked for an extension because it needed more time to finish the documentation for the commitments to the local government units.
Pulido said the Finance Department acted on the request of the DoE for the ADB loan extension covering the rollout of 3,000 e-trikes to May 2019.
The e-trike project initially sought to roll out 100,000 units of electric tricycle funded from the ADB loan totaling P21.672 billion.