The Public Estates Authority Tollway Corp. (PEATC) on Friday rejected the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) offer to buy out the interest of the government in the Manila Cavite Toll Expressway Project (MCTEP) for only P2.5 billion.
In a briefing, PEATC officer-in-charge Dioscoro Esteban Jr. told reporters the MPTC offer is disadvantageous to the government as the toll road is earning more than P2 billion a year.
Instead of government directly negotiating with its joint venture partners,Esteban proposed the privatization of Cavitex be done instead through a public bidding.
“I-bid natin baka mas kikita ang gobyerno… bakit aasa tayo sa P2.5 billion (Government may earn more if we do it by bidding. . . Why should we accept that P2.5 billion offer),” he asked rhetorically.
Ariel Inton, PEATC spokesperson, argued the 60-40 revenue sharing scheme favoring government should only be implemented after the completion of Phase 1 of the MCTEP.
As things stand, the Cavitex Infrastructure Corp (CIC) gets 90 percent of the toll collected at the expressway while the PEAC gets the shorter 10 percent of the sharing stick.
“The government is losing a conservatively estimated P1 billion because of non-compliance with reverting the revenue sharing in favor of the government,” Inton said.
From 1998 to 2023, the total government share in the Cavitex project amounted to only P2.56 billion while the CIC had P25.7 billion.
He particularly pointed out that the 10 percent merely represents the government share in the toll collection and not the 10 percent government ownership in the venture.
Inton also reiterated that the operations and maintenance agreement (OMA) with CIC already expired in August 2021 and that by right the full operations and maintenance (O&M) and toll collection be transferred to the PEAC.
Esteban said the PEATC has demanded of the CIC several times in February this year for the complete revision of the O&M, but the company refused to heed.
Thus, the PEATC had been compelled to file a petition for mandamus before the Court of Appeals to direct the CIC to turn over the operations and maintenance and for government to finally collect toll.
Under the joint venture agreement with PEATC, the CICC is responsible for the design, finance and construction of the Manila-Cavite Toll Expressway Project (MCTEP).
The MCTEP project covers R1 (7.5 kilometers), R1 Extensions (8.6 kilometers) & Cavitex-C5 (7.7 kilometers) or total of 23.8 kilometers.
