HAD all gone well, the contract to build bus stations for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) from the South Road Properties to Mambaling and Osmeña Blvd. in Cebu City would have been signed last week.
An updated procurement plan approved in March 2018 by the World Bank showed there was a plan to sign the contract last April 26 for Package 1, which covers the SRP-Osmeña Blvd. corridor. That phase of the project was estimated to cost US$43.7 million or about P2.28 billion.
Instead, the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) recommendation to cancel the BRT has placed the project in limbo. DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino cited project delays and inadequate city roads, among other reasons, for their recommendation last April 11 to cancel the Cebu BRT.
It’s been nearly four years since the World Bank approved a financial package of US$141 million (about P7.36 billion) for the Cebu BRT project.
In a meeting last Wednesday, the Investment Coordination Committee of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA-ICC) recommended hiring a Technical Support Consultant (TSC) that would help them decide on the DOTr’s recommendation.
Both Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Dino welcomed that move. A week before the recommendation to cancel the Cebu BRT, Dino’s office had circulated an announcement that a consortium of local and Chinese companies was working with the DOTr on the requirements for a Light Rail Transit that will be pursued as a public-private partnership.
In a Facebook post, Cebu Cebu City Administrator Nigel Paul Villarete explained that the TSC was one of the crucial requirements for BRT, and should have been awarded in 2016 yet.
Since the TSC is a crucial step the succeeding phases of the project needed, Engineer Villarete said their almost two-year absence was the major cause of delay in implementing the BRT.
Questions
“Of course, the NEDA-ICC members saw that. They’re some of the best minds in the country as far as economic development is concerned, and as far as viability of projects and their importance to the country’s development. And they would ask, ‘Why would we cancel a project that is very feasible at 53 percent EIRR and was approved by us, not once, but twice already? DOTr would answer, ‘Because the project is delayed.’ But the project is delayed because the TSC contract was not awarded,” Villarete said. (EIRR stands for economic internal rate of return.)
In an audit observation memorandum dated March 12, 2018, the Commission on Audit also warned the DOTr that the failure to hire a TSC had started “a chain of delays” in the Cebu BRT.
Other project milestones the World Bank had set for the Cebu BRT include the signing in May 2018 of the civil works contract to build BRT bus stations on Escario Ave. to Ayala Center; the signing of a contract to build the Bulacao terminal and bus stations from Bulacao to Mambaling in October 2019; and signing of a contract to build shelters and the Ayala and Talamban terminals in December 2018.
Osmeña said the DOTr is fooling the people for making it appear that the project will be cancelled because of its delays.
“They were ordered by the ICC to award the contract and that was even a requirement (in the loan agreement) years ago,” he said. (RVC with IDA)