THE board of directors of Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa) will soon decide on the unsolicited proposal of Prime Water for a joint venture.

This was revealed on November 16 by Claudio Salmo, president of the Baciwa Employees Union, who said the Baciwa Joint Venture Selection Committee will submit to the board their recommendation report of the result of the evaluation and benchmarking they conducted on the projects of Prime Water in Luzon.

Salmo said he went with the members of the Joint Venture Selection Committee members as an observer during the evaluation and benchmarking on November 5 to 9, led by Engineer Samuel Penado and Engineer Jenelyn Gemora.

"We found out that Prime Water now has PPP or Public Private Partnership Projects with about 50 different water districts all over the country," Salmo said.

The evaluation or actual evaluation at the project sites were all financed by Baciwa.

He also revealed that the Himamaylan Water District is now on the negotiation stage with Prime Water for the PPP project contract.

Salmo further revealed that Metro Pacific, one of the contenders for the joint venture contract, has already been eliminated after it was discovered that they have foreign incorporators.

However, Salmo said that the union is firm on their stand against the joint venture agreement or any move to privatize Baciwa.

"We want to remain as a government entity," he said.

Another company, the Manila Water, is also contender to have a joint venture with Baciwa. Their unsolicited proposal will be evaluated next after Prime Water.

Salmo said that the decision still lies on the Baciwa board after the joint venture selection committee submits its evaluation and benchmarking report. (TDE)