Busan Universal Rail Inc., the maintenance provider of MRT Line 3, on Tuesday contested a Commission of Audit report which found that more glitches were recorded in the system after Korean-Filipino venture took over the line’s maintenance.
Charles Mercado, legal counsel and spokesperson of Busan Universal, said in a news briefing the CoA report was “unfair” because the figure cited in the report was 2014 and not 2015.
“Many of the [COA] findings are fair, except omitting the year 2015. They should have compared our performance to 2015,” Mercado said.
Busan Universal, which took over the maintenance of MRT in January 2016, was able to cut system stoppages to about 1,116 in the first six months from 2,705 in 2016, according to Mercado. In 2015, the system stoppages level was 2,776.
According to the June 23 CoA report, incidents of passenger unloading surged 163.96 percent to 586 in 2016 from 222 in 2014, while train removals rose 19.81 percent to 2,691. Service interruptions went up by 26 percent to 63.
“We vehemently disprove allegations of poor maintenance under our watch, as in some areas of our contract, we performed more maintenance activities than what is required if only to ensure safe train operations,” Mercado said.
“It is unfair to continuously put the blame on us for every incident of train stoppage that is generally and more often caused by the system’s rail condition and increasingly evident design flaws,” he said.
Mercado said Busan Universal was set to submit its comments on the supposed findings of COA and clarify the unfavorable issues attributed to the company.
Mercado also said Busan Universal was only partially paid for its September to December maintenance service and largely unpaid for rendered service since then. It has a pending billing of more than P200 million, he said.
Mercado said despite the underpayment, the company would meet its commitment of train reliability, safety and comfort for the passengers.,
Mercado said its contract for MRT 3 maintenance could not be unilaterally terminated because of temporary stoppages, more so on the subjective opinion that such were supposedly due to the company’s failure to “satisfactorily perform work obligations.”
The Transportation Department in January 2016 signed a P3.8-billion three-year contract with the joint venture of Busan Transportation Corp., Edison Development & Construction, Tramat Mercantile Inc., TMICorp. and Castan Corp. to do maintenance works of the rolling stock and signaling system, the most critical maintenance component of MRT 3.
