The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said it has completed over half of the airport projects covered by its memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Department of Transportation (DOTr) for the period of 2015 to 2018.
The authority bared this detail as part of its "clarification" to earlier news reports, which quoted the Commission on Audit (COA) as saying that only 16 out of 86 airport projects worth P9.88 billion under a CAAP-DOTr MOA were finished from 2016 to 2018. This was based on COA's audit report in 2020.
"At the outset, CAAP was able to effectively implement 55.69 or 46 of the 83 identified airport projects with an aggregate project cost amounting to ₱4,639,666,816.95 under the DOTr-CAAP MOA for the initial implementation of the projects covered by the GAA for CY 2015 to CY 2018 with a Programmed Amount (PA) totaling P9.898 billion," CAAP said in a statement Thursday, Aug. 12.
"This accomplishment translates to 55.69 as to quantity and 47.25 as to overall cost," it added.
On top of this, the authority said that 10 of the 19 projects under procurement have been awarded this year and are now under ongoing project implementation.
"This simply shows that despite the work interruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, CAAP was able to implement these projects," it noted.
It said that in addition to the DOTr downloaded projects, CAAP has also identified and implemented projects under its Annual Procurement Plan (APP) from 2016-2020. "As such, DOTr downloaded projects have to be implemented on top of CAAP’s primary projects," it said.
"CAAP, on top of the DOTr downloaded projects, has successfully completed 75 out of the 87 CAAP APP projects in parallel to the 16 completed DOTr downloaded projects from 2016-2020," the statement read.
CAAP said that it "strongly believes that extensive progress has been made in realizing government infrastructure projects which prompted the DOTr to continuously entrust to CAAP the implementation of airport projects."
"CAAP is fully aware of the maximum period allowed for the procurement of infrastructure projects under the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 9184. However, there are instances where procurement timeline of the project has to be extended, such as disqualification of bidders during the conduct of Post Qualification," it also noted.
It said meeasures have been initiated in the BAC to shorten the procurement period by strictly adhering to the prescribed timeline stated in the procurement law.
"The BAC has been very strict in conducting and reporting of Post Qualification of bidders within forty five (45) calendar days. Also, CAAP has since organized 4 BACs to ensure expeditious procurement," the statement indicated.
Moreover, CAAP said it "remains steady in its strong fiscal performance" after remitting more than P21 billion in dividends to the National Treasury from 2017 to 2020, eclipsing the P1.3 billion it remitted to the National Treasury from 2008 to 2016.