Bangon Marawi Task Force eyeing negotiated contracts for war-torn city rehab
The Bangon Marawi Task Force is now eyeing negotiated contracts for most of the component-requirements to rebuild war-torn Marawi City, officials said on Friday.
In a press briefing in Malacanang, Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and Task Force Bangon Marawi chairman Eduardo del Rosario said that the Public-Private Partnership Center was suggesting to the task force to do the negotiated procurement or the Build Operate Transfer scheme to rehabilitate Marawi.
This was after the Chinese-led Bangon Marawi Consortium, which initially expressed interest to develop the city under the joint venture agreement, was disqualified for failure to meet the legal and financial requirements.
Del Rosario, however, said the Build Operate Transfer was out of the picture because it would take long before rebuilding of Marawi could take place.
Thus, his office is still pursuing the first option, which is the joint venture agreement and at the same time the possibility of negotiated contracts.
Task Force Bangon Marawi Undersecretary Falconi Ace Millar said out of the 22 components for the minimum development requirements for Marawi, based on the position paper submitted by the PPP Center, 14 could be undertaken under negotiated contracts, while only eight under joint venture agreement.
Among those that could be done under joint venture agreement are hospital and convention center since they are income generating components, while the 14 others are non-income generating.
Asked about the possibility of corruption under a negotiated contract, Del Rosario said: "That is why we have a baseline already, the result of the Bangon Marawi negotiation. We can compare this with the second developer. At our level, we know already the appropriate amount wherein we won't be on the losing end and instead favorable to the government whatever amounts that we will be agreeing to at the end of the negotiation."
Since the Bangon Marawi Consortium was disqualified, Del Rosario said the task force is talking with the second developer, which is the Power China Consortium.
He said they hope to come up with an agreement with Power China next week and to hold the groundbreaking ceremony in Marawi by September 19.
Del Rosario admitted of delay in developing the most affected areas in Marawi, covering 250 hectares or 24 barangays.
"There are times that I was already ashamed to face the Cabinet and to brief the President (Rodrigo Duterte) because of the delay. But we have to do everything by the books," he said.
For the entire rehabilitation of Marawi, he said the estimated amount could be P16 billion from the initial estimate of P21.8 billion by the disqualified developer. Celerina Monte/DMS
