SCTEx delay worsens as Japan firm seeks new extension

By Tonette Orejas - Inquirer

CLARK FREEPORT—The national flagship project Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) has suffered another deadline snag.

This happened as Hazama-Taisei-Nippon Steel Joint Venture (HTN) sought a 54-day extension, beginning Aug. 18, to finish the 44-kilometer Pampanga-Tarlac portion of the 94-km highway, according to an Inquirer source in Malacañang.

HTN, according to its contract, is supposed to finish that segment by Aug. 30. The entire road, worth P21 billion, is being built on a loan from the Japanese government.

The board of directors of the Bases Conversion Development Authority, the SCTEx’s proponent, met on Tuesday to discuss HTN’s request for more time, a BCDA source said.

The Palace source did not say how much money the HTN was claiming in its “arbitration case” against the BCDA. Another source said it amounted to about P500 million to cover the cost of accelerating the works.

HTN project Kunio Kimata on Tuesday did not answer the Inquirer’s calls.

BCDA president Narciso Abaya did not reply to Inquirer’s calls and text messages sent to his mobile phone.

Pacific Consultants International-Katahira and Engineers International-Nippon Koei Ltd. (PCI-KEI-NK), the project’s consultant, has reportedly ruled that HTN was “entitled” to the extension because of the “late delivery of right-of-way” at the spur road junction of the North Luzon Expressway.

That pertained to some 800 square meters of land in Mabalacat, Pampanga, which the BCDA claimed through an expropriation case against landowners who were selling that property at 10 times the old rate of P1,000 per square meter.

The source said the Pampanga-Tarlac side was over 95-percent complete as of last week, and the remaining works involved the correcting of defects and repair of damages from recent typhoons.

A Japanese engineer had sent text messages to the Inquirer as early as May to report about the “improper design of slope protection.”

The engineer said “consultant engineers hesitated to change [the design] because it [would] affect [the] completion date [and the project would be] delayed for six to eight months.”

The same source later said they were “instructed to repair damaged area in [an] improper manner [by] just covering [it] with soil without compaction.”

“[The] consultant’s concern [is] only [to complete it] on time. We don’t like to sacrifice quality,” he said.

HTN’s claim came after it withdrew its “Claim for Extension of Time No. 2” dated March 29.

Tetsuro Marui, Hazama general manager for international division, flew in from Tokyo to assure the BCDA that the consortium’s part would be finished on time, Abaya had said in a statement on April 16.

SCTEx’s other contractor, Kajima-Obayashi-JFE Engineering and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Joint Venture (KOJM), was allowed by President Macapagal-Arroyo in July to get a four-month extension up to March 2008 at no direct cost to the Philippine government.

Secretary Edgardo Pamintuan, chair of the Subic-Clark Alliance for Development Council, said he recommended the extension since Philippine agencies were equally liable for the delay in KOJM’s works.

However, an official involved in projects in Subic and Clark free ports assailed the government for constantly adjusting the completion dates and not charging the Japanese contractors liquidated damages at a cost of P5.1 million for every day of delay.