PNoy admin wants BOT Law amended to lure more PPP investors

Changes to the country’s decades-old Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, including a process of identifying “projects of national” significance and a longer timeframe for challenging an unsolicited proposal are being pushed by the Aquino administration.

 

“We’re hoping that we will have a part of the provision to give additional protection to the private sector for undertaking projects of national significance,” Cosette Canilao, executive director at the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center, told reporters in an ambush interview Wednesday at the sidelines of The Asset 8th Philippine Forum. 

 

Canilao noted plans are in the works for the government to shoulder real property taxes and other risks stemming from local governments for projects considered of national significance.

 

Disagreements over allocation of risks involved in PPP projects only served to stretch the bidding process and stunted efforts to boost the Philippine infrastructure. 

 

The Executive wants to have its version of BOT Law amendment out by the summer of 2014, for consideration by the 16th Congress, Canilao earlier told GMA News Online. 

 

At the forum, the PPP center executive said the Department of Finance is also mulling over ways to ease concerns by the private sector on perceived risks from big-ticket projects, including institutionalizing the Contingent Liability Fund in the BOT Law amendment. 

 

Earmarked was P30 billion under the proposed 2014 budget to pay for “any breaches” on the part of government.  

 

Canilao said the Executive as early as now is already “crunching numbers” on how much it should set aside for the fund under the 2015 budget. 

 

During the interview, Canilao said another key BOT law amendment is “lengthening the time for the Swiss challenge.”

 

Jimbo Reverente, deputy at the PPP Center, said government is looking at extending the time to challenge an unsolicited proposal from the current 120 days to six months.

 

“This will enable Swiss challengers to come up with a better proposal,” he told GMA News Online in an interview. 

 

The BOT Law amendments will ensure that current processes and contracts will be honored in succeeding administration, Canilao said at the forum. 

 

Despite the slow awarding of contracts due to stringent reviews and a convoluted approvals process, AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. executive vice president Noel Kintanar shared his point of view of the experience. 

“On transparency alone... and given the conservative nature of the group... the process was good,” he said.

 

So far, only four projects with a combined value of P43 billion have been awarded nearly three years after the program was unveiled in November 2010. – VS, GMA News