San Miguel Corp. president and chief operating officer top Ramon Ang urged the government to award road contracts based on the lowest toll offer instead of the highest premium bid, saying the mode is more beneficial to the public.
Ang’s suggestion followed the government’s failure to bid out the P123-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike contract, the biggest infrastructure project that the Aquino administration had offered so far under the public-private partnership program.
“I think the best thing the government should do next time is to seek the lowest toll bid instead of asking investors to come up and pay the government premium,” Ang said.
He said the strategy was more beneficial to the public instead of a bid premium, which was an additional cost for the proponent that would eventually be passed to the public in terms of higher toll.
“I think that is more beneficial to consumers in term lower toll and lower tariff rate rather than asking for a premium and let the consumer pay so much,” Ang added.
The Aquino administration has sought the highest premium front-end payment and the least total project cost.
San Miguel’s Optimal Infrastructure Development Corp., which won the P15.86-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport contract, offered an P11-billion premium bid when it bagged the PPP project.
The AF Consortium of Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investment Corp. secured the P1.72-billion Automated Fare Collection System project after offering to pay government a P1.088-billion negative bid.
The tandem of Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure of India, meanwhile, offered a premium bid of P14.4 billion to secure the P17.52-billion contract to develop, operate and maintain the Mactan-Cebu International Airport for 25 years.
Metro Pacific Investments Corp. won the P35.4 billion Cavite-Laguna Expressway project after submitting a premium bid of P27.3 billion for the 47-kilometer toll road.
The Light Rail Manila Consortium last year made a P9.35-billion premium payment for the P64.9-billion Light Rail Transit 1 Cavite Extension Project. The lone bidder on the project is composed of MPIC, Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and Philippine Investment Alliance for Infrastructure’s Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings Philippines PTE Ltd.