The Public Works Department is set to start the Swiss Challenge for the long-delayed expressway that will link the north and south of Manila.
“We will publish the Swiss Challenge next month,” Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson said over the weekend.
The board of the National Economic and Development Authority in December approved the Swiss Challenge on the NLEx-SLEx Connector Road Project on the condition that the original proponent, Manila North Tollways Corp., will lower the project internal rate of return to 10.87 percent from 12.09 percent, by lowering the opening tariff from P100 to P87.
The project involves the construction of an eight-kilometer, four-lane toll road that lining the North Luzon Expressway and South Luzon Expressway, passing through Metro Manila and using the existing Philippine National Railway alignment as its route.
The Public Works Department will implement the project, which has a total estimated cost of P23.2 billion and a concession period of 35 years.
Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., which is separately constructing the P26.7-billion Skyway Stage 3 Project, will build the five-kilometer common alignment from Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Sta. Mesa, Manila to Buendia in Makati City of the NLEx-SLEx project.
The Neda board earlier approved the NLEx-SLEx Connector Project under the unsolicited mode, subject to a Swiss Challenge.
MNTC, which operates NLEx, earlier sealed a joint venture with Philippine National Construction Corp. in a bid to facilitate construction of the NLEx-SLEx Connector Road.
Other MNTC shareholders are Egis Projects S.A. of France, Leighton Asia Ltd. of Australia and PNCC, which holds the franchise to run the expressway.
The government decided to subject the project to a Swiss challenge after the Justice Department issued a legal opinion, saying the Neda board’s decision to implement the project as a joint venture was “without factual basis or jurisdiction.”
The joint-venture route aimed to do away with the Swiss challenge, which was required of the project when it was still being pursued as an unsolicited venture.
MNTC earlier reported a net income of P2.22 billon in the January-September period, up 22 percent from P1.82 billion a year ago, mainly due to high traffic growth and toll revenues generated during the period.
MNTC’s revenues in the nine-month period grew 10 percent to P6.04 billion from P5.47 billion last year as average daily traffic hit 199,196, up 9 percent in 2014.