DOF says NLEX-SLEX link road is good to go

The P23.2-billion elevated "connector road" linking the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) to South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) is good to go, the Department of Finance said Wednesday.

"My understanding is they can award it if they wish," Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III told reporters on the sidelines of a Senate hearing.

Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corp. (MPTDC), a unit of Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Investments Corp., failed to bag the public-private partnership project as MPTDC was not classified as a separate special purpose company (SPC) as suggested by the Finance Department under the administration of then-President Benigno Aquino III.

The company was supposed to win the project as no other company took part in the Swiss Challenge on July 25.

Dominguez said it would be better for the government to award the project to an SPC. "It's just more convenient for us, so that if anything goes wrong it's very easy for us to identify the assets."

He noted, however, the suggestion of the previous administration to award the project to an SPC was not binding. "It's not ex cathedra."

According to the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center, the project involves cover the construction, operation, and maintenance of an 8-kilometer elevated expressway over the Philippine National Railway (PNR) right of way.

It starts from the C3 Road in Caloocan City through Manila, crossing over España Boulevard towards PUP in Sta. Mesa and connecting Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3.

"Once completed, the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road is expected to decongest traffic in Metro Manila by providing an alternative to C-5 Road, Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), and other major thoroughfares, and cut the travel time between NLEX and SLEX to 15 to 20 minutes which today makes more than an hour," the PPP Center noted. — VDS, GMA News