BCDA postpones Clark airport O&M bidding

MANILA, Philippines — State-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) has postponed the opening of bids for the Clark International Airport operations and maintenance (O&M) contract scheduled yesterday.

In a notice Monday morning, the BCDA announced that the opening of bids for the O&M contract has been rescheduled to Nov. 9. Bids were supposed to be opened yesterday at 1:30 p.m. based on BCDA’s earlier invitation.

“There are still a lot of things being fixed on the bid documents. Promise, there will be no more extension (on Friday),” BCDA president and chief executive officer Vivencio Dizon said yesterday.

The schedule of the opening of bids for the Clark International Airport O&M contract was announced by the BCDA on Oct. 30, a week before its supposed schedule of Nov. 5.

The bid opening has been pushed back for months as bidders sought extensions.

Bid submission for the project was originally scheduled on July 20 and the target awarding of O&M contract was on Aug. 30.

In an earlier interview, Dizon said delays in the original schedules were due to the request for extensions by the bidders.

Infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), which was among the firms that purchased bid documents for the Clark International Airport O&M contract, last week said it has lost the appetite to participate in the bidding for the project as it has encountered some problems regarding the proposed concession agreement.

“While MPIC expressed its interest to support the government’s Build Build Build initiative for Clark Airport, we find the current draft of the concession agreement extremely challenging, given the identified material risks that were not addressed,” the firm said.

“The schedule of the bid submission further made participation in the bid very difficult, considering that the final draft of the concession agreement was released only yesterday. For the foregoing reasons, MPIC is unlikely to submit a bid for the project,” it said.

MPIC was among the nine firms that have earlier purchased bid documents for the Clark International Airport O&M contract.