THE Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa) will start the negotiation next month with Prime Water on their unsolicited proposal for a joint venture.
Lorendo Dilag, chairman of the board, said the negotiation will start after Prime Water, owned by the Villar Group of Companies, passed the evaluation of the Joint Venture Selection Committee in terms of financial, legal, and technical aspects.
“This is not definite yet. As far as the proposal of Prime Water is concerned, it has not started yet. We don't know if they will pass or not,” Dilag said.
He also clarified that Baciwa will still remain a government-owned and controlled corporation and will not be privatized.
“The management and the board will object in the total privatization of Baciwa. This is only a partnership,” Dilag said.
Dilag said Baciwa has not been receiving any funding from the local government unit.
“We don't want to get a loan so we need to look for help so partnership would be an alternative,” he said.
Baciwa general manager Juliana Carbon, for her part, explained that the goal of Baciwa has been to give full customer satisfaction.
Dilag said that in 2016, Baciwa received the unsolicited proposal first from Metro Pacific then Prime Water and Manila Water.
“The joint venture committee disqualified Metro Pacific after it failed on the evaluation in terms of legal, technical and financial aspects,” Dilag said.
Dilag also assured the public that with the joint venture, anything about water rate increase would still go through the regular procedure with the final approval of the Local Water Utilities Administration.
Dilag said the Bacolod Bulk Water Inc. still failed to deliver water to Baciwa from Injection Point No. 2 because of the issue on the right of way that the company failed to resolve until this time.
He also revealed that up to this time, Baciwa did not pay Bacolod Bulk Water Inc. (BBWI) of the water supply they provided for Baciwa because of their failure to abide by the contract on Injection Point No. 1 which has been operating and supplying water at 15 million liters per day since 2017.
Carbon said Baciwa has already earmarked P30 million, which is ready to be paid to BBWI for the water they have been supplying to Baciwa, but they are still waiting for the decision of the Office of Government Corporate Counsel that can resolve the issue on the contract of violation of BBWI and the right of way for Injection Point No. 1.
Meanwhile, Carbon said Baciwa has entered into a contract for bulk water supply with Murcia Water District in line with Baciwa's vision for water security.
Under the contract, Murcia Water District will supply Baciwa 2.5 million liters of water per day as their excess water.
The contract will start in September this year, Baciwa assistant general manager Jenelyn Gemora said.