‘We don’t care who wins bid; don’t delay airport project’

Mandaue City Chamber of Commerce, Philip Tan

Any further delays in the awarding of the contract for the expansion of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) would hamper  Cebu’s economy and tourism, local business leaders  said yesterday.

“To be hostaged by all these issues, it’s the Cebuanos who really suffers from this delay,” said Philip N. Tan, Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry president.

Tan said Cebu’s business community and the public in general don’t care who between  the two top bidders, GMR-Megawide and Filinvest-Changi wins the P17.5 billion project, the first  Public-Private Partnership project of the Aquino administration in Cebu.

“We need to make a decision and move on. The public doesn’t care if GMR or Filinvest wins the bid. We just need to get things going. The development and  future of Cebu cannot wait,” Tan said.

The bids committee of the Department of Transportation and Communication told a Senate committee hearing last week that a final decision on the bidding would be announced  before the end of March.

Over the past few days, top executives of both bidders were in Cebu to discuss their positions in media briefings.

Yesterday, GMR and Megawide executives gave a media briefing to counter  allegations of Filinvest  supporters that the consortium should be disqualified for conflict of interest.

Tan, in a separate interview, said the question of whether a bidder can financially sustain the project was  a non-issue.

He said the bidding contract provides for a bond that will allow the government to take over the project in case the winning contractor could not complete the project.

UNACCEPTABLE

Cebu Business Club president Gordon Alan Joseph said further  delay is “unacceptable” and that DOTC should already set a deadline.

Prudencia Gesta, past president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the delay would  reset the completion date of the project which covers two phases  within a 20-year period.

Ma. Teresa Chan, CCCI president, said the chamber wants the DOTC and PBAC to award the bid at the soonest possible time.

“We just want the DOTC to expedite but make their criteria clear and decision making transparent,” she said.

Network of Independent Travel Agencies (Nitas) chairman Robert Lim Joseph said he believes GMR-Megawide which gave the highest bid of P14.4 billion followed the correct procedure.

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