Business group asks SC to stop airport takeover
Two days after it took over terminal operations of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA), GMR-Megawide faced a new legal challenge.
A group of businessmen filed a petition before the Supreme Court (SC), seeking to stop the consortium that bagged the multi-billion peso contract from taking over, rehabilitating and expanding the airport.
The Business for Progress Movement, represented by its president Medardo Deacosta Jr., asked the High Court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against GMR-Megawide.
They also sought a preliminary injunction to stop GMR-Megawide from running the MCIA terminal operations.
In its petition, the group alleged that GMR-Megawide has no financial capacity to undertake the rehabilitation and expansion of the Cebu airport.
The group said the public would suffer “grave and irreparable injury” due to the recent increase in terminal fees paid by domestic and international passengers as a public service charge to fund the airport’s expansion.
Sought for comment, Louie Ferrer, GMCAC president said he has not yet received a copy of the petition and would have to ask their legal team to review it.
“We will abide by the law and let the law take its course. For now, we will continue what we have started at the airport. We will provide the best service for Cebu,” he said in a press statement.
Debt-ridden
The Business for Progress Movement cited international business news reports which stated that Megawide’s partner, GMR Infrastructure, is in a state of being “debt-ridden.”
“Petitioner also learned that… (GMR Infrastructure) had to raise funds through asset, sale, equity issue and to divest a few road and power plants in order to pay its corporate debts,” said the petition as cited in a report by ABS-CBN News yesterday.
The petitioner added that any firm with an unstable financial standing should be barred from undertaking an important public project.
Last April 22, the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) signed an agreement with GMR-Megawide to build a new MCIA passenger terminal that will start in January 2015 to January 2018.
Under the concession agreement, GMR-Megawide will develop and expand the current passenger terminal. The project is expected to be finished in 2019.
But the Business forProgress Movement raised doubts on whether GMR-Megawide met the financial requirements for expanding the MCIA.
“Since (GMR-Megawide) has no financial capacity to start the rehabilitation of MCIA, both (DOTC and GMR-Megawide) had come up with the scheme imposing an increased rate of terminal fees to cover the operating costs and expansion of the project,” the petitioners said.
Sought for comment yesterday, MCIA general manager Paul Villarete said they have yet to receive a copy of the petition filed by the Business for Progress Movement.
“So we don’t know what it is. It would be inappropriate to comment (for now),” Villarete said in a text message to CDN.
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