Secrecy, rush mark tender of biggest MWSS dam project

Our latest two-part report authored by PCIJ Fellow Roel Landingin reveals how secrecy and precipitate haste mark the tender by the state-run Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) for the P52-billion Laiban Dam project in Tanay, Rizal.

The MWSS has invited rival bidders to submit counter-offers in five working days, or until Wednesday, July 8. Whether or not they do, by all indications the project will be awarded to food-beverage giant San Miguel Corporation whose chairman and CEO is Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr, erstwhile Marcos crony and newfound Arroyo political ally.

Laiban Dam, potentially the biggest infrastructure contract of the Arroyo administration is also the biggest in the MWSS’s 131-year history. The project, which is being tendered mainly through a negotiation-based process rather than competitive auction, could become San Miguel’s first major infrastructure contract with the government.

And yet it was only last July 2, in a notice published in a newspaper classified ads section, that the MWSS announced it was inviting applications for eligibility to submit joint venture proposals for the design, financing, construction and operation of the dam located 70 kilometer east of Manila that aims to boost water supply to the capital region’s 12 million residents and ease potential shortfalls.

The deadline for bidders to submit a letter of intent and to buy tender documents that cost P1 million has been set for Wednesday, July 8, or just a week from publication of the notice. Bidders who meet the first deadline have just one month or until August 7 to file their eligibility documents, and technical and financial proposals.

Fact is, five months ahead of its notice for bids, the MWSS has commenced talks with an SMC unit, San Miguel Bulk Water Co. on a joint venture deal to build and operate the Laiban dam.

Secrecy and a dearth of publicly available information have marked these talks. Except for a San Miguel press release last February 9 disclosing it has submitted an unsolicited proposal to MWSS, no further official statements have been issued by either parties on the status of their talks.

It seems like the MWSS purposely wants the notice of invitation for rival bids to go unnoticed.

The MWSS has not issued any press releases or statements at all about its invitation for rival joint venture offers, except for its newspaper ad last July 2. The invitation is not even posted on its official web site, a procedure required by the new guidelines on joint venture agreements with the government that took effect in May 2008, nor on the government’s electronic procurement system, PhilGEPS.