The Department of Transportation said it is finalizing a deal with the government of Japan for the rehabilitation and maintenance of Metro Rail Transit Line 3.
Transportation assistant secretary for railways TJ Batan said the agency was now in the final stages of exchanging note verbales between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Japan Embassy in Manila.
Batan said the arrangement would involve the grant of an official development assistance for the rehabilitation and maintenance requirements of MRT-3, which encountered numerous malfunctions in recent years because of alleged substandard maintenance and underinvestment.
Batan said the DOTr would utilize the bidding process of Japan in getting the rehabilitation and maintenance service provider for MRT-3, as required in all ODA arrangements with them.
He said the procurement rules and regulations would be observed in choosing the service provider. This means that the provider would be Japanese, like other projects of DOTr with Japan.
Batan said the government was expected to exchange note verbales with Japan in the first week of January.
After the exchange, the DOTr and railway engineers from the Japan International Cooperation Agency would conduct a due diligence study of MRT-3 until February to clearly identify the needed rehabilitation works.
The department recently completed the procurement of the first batch of various spare parts required for the MRT 3 system’s maintenance.
Among those already procured by the agency over the last seven weeks were spare parts for rolling stock worth about P8.66 million and spare parts for tracks amounting to P7.33 million.
The DOTr served its final decision to terminate its P3.8-billion contract with Busan Universal Railways Inc. for the maintenance of MRT 3 system in November.
The agency said among the reasons for the termination of the contract were poor performance, failure to put in service and subsequently ensure the availability of contractually obligated number of trains, failure to put in operation reliable and efficient trains and failure to implement a feasible procurement plan for spare parts.
