LRTA seeks $9.6 million to 'supervise' rail loop project

MANILA, Philippines - The losing bidder for the $120-million Light Railway Transport-Metro Rail Transport (LRT-MRT) loop project said yesterday the LRTA is asking $9.6 million as “supervision fee” to oversee the construction of additional rail stations.

“This is outrageous. This is worse than the Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard scandal,” Filsystems spokesman Albert Reyes said, referring to allegations that one contractor built a two-kilometer section of the five-km. road for $16 million, or $11.5 million more than it should have cost.

The loop project involves building new stations to connect the MRT line from SM North EDSA to the LRT line in Monumento, which runs 5.4 km.

Under “normal industry practice,” Filsystems said supervision fees only account for “one percent” of the $120 million total project cost, which means it could have been only $1.2 million or about P50 million.

Reyes explained that the $9.6 million or P460.8 million being asked by LRT Authority (LRTA), which has yet to be released, is “about 8.8 times more or 880 percent higher” than standard practice.

Out of the P460.8 million, LRTA wants P101.8 million for “initial design consulting services.” Reyes said LRTA sought from the Department of Budget and Management the $9.6 million funding in November 2006, even without Cabinet approval.

Filsystems also said the LRTA already had the design concept in November 2006 even if the bidding for the selection of consultants for design concept, supervision, and feasibility study was “advertised for bidding” only in January 2007.