Japan firms demand P500M from BCDA
By Tonette Orejas - Central Luzon Desk
CLARK FREEPORT -- A Japanese consortium has continued to press payment of P500 million from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority for its work on the 44-km Pampanga-Tarlac side of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) even as audits showed defects on those parts of the project.
The financial claims by the Hazama-Taisei-Nippon Steel Joint Venture (HTN) have not been paid because these are still the subject of an arbitration case between the BCDA and HTN, BCDA president Narciso Abaya told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Saturday.
HTN is seeking P200 million for “acceleration cost,” P200 million for pending claim, and P100 million for variation and change order as of May 2007, a copy of a letter by HTN project manager Kunio Kimata to Abaya and BCDA executive vice president Isaac Puno III showed.
The Inquirer obtained the letter, received by the BCDA on June 15, from the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon (ADCL), a multisectoral watchdog monitoring the SCTEx.
Built on a P23.06-billion loan from the Japanese government and P4 billion from the BCDA, this highway traversing the western boundary of Central Luzon connects the Subic and Clark freeports and the Luisita Industrial Park, making the seaport and the two airports there accessible by just an hour.
The link was made in line with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s vision to transform the two freeports into “Southeast Asia’s best logistics hub.”
Economist Bernardo Villegas said the SCTEx boosted Central Luzon’s chance as a “little China.”
But the construction of the SCTEx has been snagged by delays, with Japanese contractors complaining of late access to project sites.
The Kajima-Obayashi-JFE Engineering and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Joint Venture (KOJM), the Japanese contractor on the 50-km Bataan-Pampanga side, was given a four-month extension up to March 2008 to catch up with works that were nearly 85-percent complete as of Aug. 31.
Abaya said the BCDA board was not keen on paying the acceleration cost demanded by HTN because the project engineer has found this to be “unacceptable and unwarranted.”
“The reason is very simple. How can [HTN] claim acceleration [cost] when it is late? It said it mobilized additional machines and personnel but these should not be charged to the BCDA because it is their fault that they incurred slippage [delay],” Abaya said.
The acceleration cost is not among the items stated in HTN’s original P8.5-billion contract, according to an Inquirer source involved in Subic and Clark projects.
Payments for the two items are not coming soon until HTN has submitted documents supporting the claims for P300 million.
“Our consultants have no bases yet to assess and validate [the claims],” Abaya said.
Kimata declined to confirm the P500 million “request for settlement of pending payment” when interviewed after BCDA officials gave Pampanga officials and ADCL members a project briefing on Saturday.
In his letter, however, he said the “cost suffered by us for the above acceleration measures should be compensated appropriately.”
“To recover the delay caused by the factors beyond the contractor’s responsibility, the contractor has been required to work with nearly double work force in equipment and [man] power in order to maintain [the] same productivity even in [the] rainy season as [the] dry season,” he said.
‘Late site possession’
In the same letter, he attributed the delay to “late site possession” of the spur road connected to the North Luzon Expressway, to the interventions by the Mabalacat (Pampanga) and Concepcion (Tarlac) local governments, and to right-of-way problems arising from the agrarian and labor disputes at the Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province.
Kimata said the “late approval” of the BCDA on the kind of filling materials to be used, later agreed to be lahar topped with mountain soil, caused a “big delay” on the schedule.
“In the original schedule, we had expected to start this work from November 2005 as approved by the engineer. However, we could make a full swing activity only after October 2006. We entirely had lost one dry season,” Kimata said.
Lawyer Regina Salvi Lapuz, head of the BCDA contracts management department, said HTN was ordered to redo a 52.5-meter span on M.A. Roxas Highway in Clark because that part was “short of the [required] thickness.”
CLARK FREEPORT -- A Japanese consortium has continued to press payment of P500 million from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority for its work on the 44-km Pampanga-Tarlac side of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) even as audits showed defects on those parts of the project.
The financial claims by the Hazama-Taisei-Nippon Steel Joint Venture (HTN) have not been paid because these are still the subject of an arbitration case between the BCDA and HTN, BCDA president Narciso Abaya told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Saturday.
HTN is seeking P200 million for “acceleration cost,” P200 million for pending claim, and P100 million for variation and change order as of May 2007, a copy of a letter by HTN project manager Kunio Kimata to Abaya and BCDA executive vice president Isaac Puno III showed.
The Inquirer obtained the letter, received by the BCDA on June 15, from the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon (ADCL), a multisectoral watchdog monitoring the SCTEx.
Built on a P23.06-billion loan from the Japanese government and P4 billion from the BCDA, this highway traversing the western boundary of Central Luzon connects the Subic and Clark freeports and the Luisita Industrial Park, making the seaport and the two airports there accessible by just an hour.
The link was made in line with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s vision to transform the two freeports into “Southeast Asia’s best logistics hub.”
Economist Bernardo Villegas said the SCTEx boosted Central Luzon’s chance as a “little China.”
But the construction of the SCTEx has been snagged by delays, with Japanese contractors complaining of late access to project sites.
The Kajima-Obayashi-JFE Engineering and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Joint Venture (KOJM), the Japanese contractor on the 50-km Bataan-Pampanga side, was given a four-month extension up to March 2008 to catch up with works that were nearly 85-percent complete as of Aug. 31.
Abaya said the BCDA board was not keen on paying the acceleration cost demanded by HTN because the project engineer has found this to be “unacceptable and unwarranted.”
“The reason is very simple. How can [HTN] claim acceleration [cost] when it is late? It said it mobilized additional machines and personnel but these should not be charged to the BCDA because it is their fault that they incurred slippage [delay],” Abaya said.
The acceleration cost is not among the items stated in HTN’s original P8.5-billion contract, according to an Inquirer source involved in Subic and Clark projects.
Payments for the two items are not coming soon until HTN has submitted documents supporting the claims for P300 million.
“Our consultants have no bases yet to assess and validate [the claims],” Abaya said.
Kimata declined to confirm the P500 million “request for settlement of pending payment” when interviewed after BCDA officials gave Pampanga officials and ADCL members a project briefing on Saturday.
In his letter, however, he said the “cost suffered by us for the above acceleration measures should be compensated appropriately.”
“To recover the delay caused by the factors beyond the contractor’s responsibility, the contractor has been required to work with nearly double work force in equipment and [man] power in order to maintain [the] same productivity even in [the] rainy season as [the] dry season,” he said.
‘Late site possession’
In the same letter, he attributed the delay to “late site possession” of the spur road connected to the North Luzon Expressway, to the interventions by the Mabalacat (Pampanga) and Concepcion (Tarlac) local governments, and to right-of-way problems arising from the agrarian and labor disputes at the Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province.
Kimata said the “late approval” of the BCDA on the kind of filling materials to be used, later agreed to be lahar topped with mountain soil, caused a “big delay” on the schedule.
“In the original schedule, we had expected to start this work from November 2005 as approved by the engineer. However, we could make a full swing activity only after October 2006. We entirely had lost one dry season,” Kimata said.
Lawyer Regina Salvi Lapuz, head of the BCDA contracts management department, said HTN was ordered to redo a 52.5-meter span on M.A. Roxas Highway in Clark because that part was “short of the [required] thickness.”
Labels: bcda, sctex, subic clark expressway
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