The Energy Department plans to apply for a new loan from the Asian Development Bank to roll out the government’s electric jeepney program, a year after the government cancelled the loan for the electric tricycle program.
Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the agency would apply for a new loan for e-jeepneys if the ADB would not agree to reallocate a part of the funding for the e-trike program.
“We have said that maybe, we can use the funding originally for the e-trike to e-jeepney. If we can’t, we have to apply for a new loan,” Cusi said.
He said the e-jeepney program of the department would involve the conversion to electric or battery operation of the jeepney but would still retain the original body.
“We will only change the mechanism so we won’t discard anything…We are thinking if we can use the Green Technology Fund,” he said.
Cusi said the loan would be used to provide financing to jeepney operators for the conversion while the operators and/or drivers could use the savings from the fuel to pay for the loan.
Cusi said the department was waiting for the no objection letter from the ADB for the e-trike program.
“We are waiting for the no objection letter because we had to revise the framework…We want to roll them out already,” Cusi said.
Cusi downscaled the e-trike program to 3,000 units from the original 100,000 units.
The department issued the amendments to the ADB loan which was reduced to P1.73 billion for the electric tricycle program from the original project cost of P21.672 billion.
The ADB loan was under the agency’s Market Transformation through Introduction of Energy-Efficient Electric Vehicles Project.
Cusi moved to partially cancel the ADB loan contract last year as the department wanted to revisit all the options available in view of the alleged significant flaws in the project’s design, including the choice of just one model and pricing concerns.