CIVIL works for the New Cebu International Container Port (CICP) have been scheduled to tentatively start in November 2020.
This, though, is two years behind schedule as work for the port project in Barangay Tayud, Consolacion was supposed to begin in October 2018.
In its official publication, the Regional Development Council (RDC) 7 reported a status update of major infrastructure projects in Central Visayas as of January 2020.
Work on the port project’s operating facilities, on the other hand, is set to start in March 2021.
To recall, President Rodrigo Duterte and the South Korean Government had signed a loan agreement for the construction of the CICP.
The project’s implementing agency is the Department of Transportation (DOTr) of which the Cebu Port Authority (CPA) is an attached office. After the project is completed, it will be turned over to the CPA, which will use it.
The Korean Export-Import Bank, where the US$190-million loan is reserved, had given the Philippine Government until Oct. 3, 2018 to start the project.
But the bidding had encountered a setback because of the lack of clearances.
A SunStar Cebu February 2019 report said the DOTr has yet to secure clearances from the Philippine Reclamation Authority and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which resulted in the delayed construction of the port.
The new port will have a berthing facility with a 500-meter quay wall length that can simultaneously accommodate two 2,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) vessels, operating facilities and structures for containers such as a freight station and inspection shed, an access road and bridge and a dredged waterway and turning basin. (WBS)