NGCP to prepay part of concession fee to gov’t

MANILA, Philippines - The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the country’s sole transmission highway operator, is eyeing to prepay part of its concession fee to the government to help the Aquino administration.

“We can prepay $1 to $2 billion. We can help the government,” said NGCP president Henry Sy Jr.

He said NGCP, which won a 25-year concession contract to operate the country’s transmission assets, could issue corporate notes to raise the required funding for the prepayment.

Sy said NGCP would announce the final date and amount for the prepayment once it is able to finalize the details.

“Hopefully, we can announce it within the year,” he said.

Emmanuel Ledesma Jr., PSALM president and chief executive officer, has written NGCP pressing it to prepay its outstanding concession fees.

“We are voluntary offering to the government that if we can get financing we will do prepayment,” said NGCP special assistant to the president Joseph Dechavez.

 NGCP needs to pay $2.7 billion in remaining concession fees.

The company, a privately owned corporation in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the country’s power transmission network, won the 25-year concession contract in 2008.

A joint venture between State Grid Corp. of China and Sy, son of mall magnate Henry Sy, whose conglomerate operates the SM Mall chain.

Under the concession agreement, NGCP has to pay the government through PSALM, some $3.95 billion in concession fees, on a staggered basis over the concession period.

However, PSALM, the agency tasked to handle and manage the government’s power assets, has been prodding NGCP to prepay the concession fee to allow it to settle the obligations of National Power Corp. (Napocor), the state-owned power company.