Consortium denies conflict of interest

CEBU, Philippines - The Megawide-GMR Consortium strongly denied allegations of conflict of interest and dismissed yet another bid by Filinvest-CAI consortium to undermine the bid process for the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport PPP Project.

 GMR Corporate Communications Group head, Manish Kalghatgi, and Megawide chief marketing officer, Louie Ferrer, made a presentation yesterday before the media of the track record and credentials of the company.

Megawide-GMR consortium believes that this is yet another attempt by the Filinvest-CAI consortium to exert undue influence on the Pre-Qualification Bid and Award Committee and seek its disqualification after it emerged as the highest bidder for the said airport deal.

"These new false allegations are the second such attempt by the Filinvest-CAI consortium, where they had earlier made false allegations about GMR Group's capability to undertake this project," said the Megawide-GMR consortium in a statement.

Megawide-GMR claimed that it had already answered all of these allegations, in a satisfactory manner, to PBAC.

"Having failed in their previous attempt to achieve our disqualification, Filinvest-CAI consortium is now exhibiting a trend of raising one irrelevant issue after another in their pursuit of the Mactan-Cebu Airport project in the pre-award verification stage and thereby undermining the bid rules laid out for all bidders," it said.

The Megawide-GMR consortium yesterday clarified that there is absolutely no conflict of interest between Megawide-GMR consortium and the First Philippine Airports Consortium as per the bidding rules.

It said that the bidding entity representing GMR in its consortium is GMR Infrastructure and Tansri Bashir of MAHB has no role to play in the bid since he is not a member of the Board of Directors of GMR Infrastructure.

"Moreover, the presence of Tansri Bashir on the Boards of our four airport subsidiaries is not in violation of any of the PBAC rules governing the bid process," it said.

Megawide-GMR emphasized the fact that it has always acted in good faith and has always observed all rules and regulations in relation to the bidding.

"We strongly condemn the repeated gross violation of bidding rules and regulations by Filinvest-CAI consortium in raising irrelevant issues in a desperate pursuit to seek our disqualification," the statement said.

Megawide-GMR reiterated its commitment that if awarded, it will honor its commitment to collaborate with the Cebu community to deliver an airport that all Filipinos and Cebuanos will be proud to call their own.

"We have full faith in the due process being followed by PBAC and would much prefer that PBAC is allowed to follow the due process without external interference being exerted by the Filinvest-CAI consortium," it added. — /BRP (FREEMAN)