Japanese group’s Iloilo airport bid cancelled

The Department of Transportation and Communications yesterday reaffirmed its policy of transparency and accountability in the implementation of infrastructure construction projects of the DOTC. The declaration comes on the heels of the decision by the prequalification, bids and awards committee to disqualify a Japanese consortium from participating in the bidding for the rehabilitation of the Iloilo City airport.

The bid of the Taisei-Kajima-Shimizu Consortium for the P6.2 billion Iloilo Airport Development Project was rejected by the PBAC headed by Assistant Secretary Rene Maglanque because one of its partners was involved and convicted recently in a bribery-scandal in Japan.

The Japanese Ministry of Infrastructure and Land Transportation, after the conviction of the Kajima group, suspended the construction firm from participating in any government and private construction projects from March 25 to April 3 this year. Maglanque said the PBAC rejected the Japanese firm’s bid despite the reported pressures from local political and foreign funding agency supporters of the Kajima group. Kajima has reportedly boasted of the influential backing it enjoy’s from a ranking government official and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

Maglanque said another reason for the rejection of the consortium’s bid was a procedural lapse when Taisei tried to fix the situation by writing DOTC that the Kajima group had already seceded from the consortium but withdrew the same information a day before the bid submission.