COA seeks revival of Pasig River ferry service

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit (COA) called on the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) to revive its Pasig River Ferry Service project, which ceased to operate in January last year.

State auditors said not doing so would put to waste a P181-million loan from the Asian Development Bank, which was used to construct 10 ferry stations.

The 2011 COA report, released yesterday, stated that the boat stations remained idle after the Pasig River Ferry Service ceased its operation. As a result, state auditors said “the government is paying foreign loan for a project whose main objective of decongesting road traffic in Metro Manila was not attained.”

The project’s terms of reference provide that the ferry service’s main goal is to tap the river as an alternative transport corridor to decongest roads in Metro Manila, and ferry stations were built to achieve this objective.

State auditors said the Department of Transportation and Communications, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and the PRRC were the government agencies primarily involved in the project. 

The audit team noted that based on a memorandum of agreement, the PRRC shall own, operate and maintain the ferry or boat stations until they are turned over to an appropriate government agency or private sector operator.

In its 2010 audit report, COA said the ferry service incurred a total loss of P94 million since it started operating in March 2007 until December 2010. State auditors attributed the loss to the decrease in passengers, caused by boat operator SCC Nautical Transport Services Inc.’s failure to provide 18 50-seater vessels.

The operator “instead provided the six 150-seater (vessels), which decreased the frequency of trips. It thus increased the number of waiting hours for the passengers,” the COA said.

The boat operator notified PRRC in a Dec. 30, 2010 letter that it will suspend the ferry service due to low “ridership turnout” and increasing fuel cost. Among the reasons the operator cited for the low turnout was the uncompleted Rosario, Maybunga, Kapasigan and River Banks stations.

However, the COA’s 2010 audit report stated that these stations had been constructed but were not utilized because some areas along the river were not navigable.

“We recommended that management open the ferry service to competitive bidding and adhere to the requirement of 18 50-passenger vessels,” which could navigate the river better compared to the bigger vessels, the state auditors said in their 2011 report.