There will be no corruption again in
the rehabilitation of the Metro Rail Transit Line-3 (MRT-3) , its rehabilitation
is not overpriced.
The total cost of the rehabilitation of
the MRT-3 is P18 B and this was based on
the recent audit of the railway system, DOTr Undersecretary for Railways
Timothy John Batan said.
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| Sumitomo returns to fully rehabilitate MRT3 and its maintenance provider (photo credit to owner) |
“Sumitomo has not formally or even
informally given a price quote to MRTC (MRT Corporation) for the rehabilitation
and maintenance of MRT-3 anytime in the last five years and our proposal would
be based on recent audit on the current MRT-3 system,” Batan said.
The Sumitomo-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
comes into the picture after the Philippines represented by the Department of
Finance (DOF) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
signed the PHP 18B (38-Billion Japanese yen), it will be taking over its
rehabilitation and maintenance of the MRT-3.
Sumitomo was part of the consortium
that designed and built the railway system from 1998 to 2000 and maintained the
system from 2000 to 2012.
DOTr had to addressed the allegation of
Philippine Star columnist that the cost of the MRT rehabilitation has more than
doubled from PHP7.5 billion to PHP18 billion..
In Bondoc’s column he alleges that said
MRT-3 owner Metro Rail Transit Corporation (MRTC) has proposed to conduct the
rehab for only PHP7.5 billion in 2016.
“Wala naman technical capability ang MRTC nangongolekta lang yan ng renta mula saDOTr at hindi naman siya talagang railway
operator at developer (MRTC has no technical capability; they only
collect rents coming from the DOTr and they are not really a railway operator
and developer),” Batan said.
A team of experts from the JICA
conducted a comprehensive system inspection of the current status of the MRT-3
earlier this year all in preparation for the signing of the loan agreement for
the rehabilitation project.
“From January to April this year, a
JICA study team, composed of 150 Japanese and Filipino engineers, conducted a
comprehensive system inspection of the MRT-3. JICA, then held a fact-finding
mission in April to verify the results of the study, and subsequently, a loan
appraisal mission for the project in May,” Batan explains.
The upgrade of the Metro
Rail Transit Line-3 (MRT-3) which is set to start by January of
2019 is projected to last for three and a half years.
The DOTr expects the
operations of the MRT-3 to gradually improve starting on the third quarter of
next year
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