12/21/2011 [ tribune.net.ph ]
The government has postponed to the first quarter of next year the planned privatization of the 120-hectare Food Terminals Inc. (FTI) in Taguig City as it conducts re-appraisal of the property.
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said the government decided to tap Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) to re-appraise the property to update its correct price.
He said the property was last appraised in 2010.
“The DoF (Department of Finance) will push through with a negotiated bid which will then be subjected to a Swiss challenge after,” he said.
The government is keen on selling 103-hectare of the 120-hectare agro-industrial commercial estate. The remaining 17-hectare is owned by the National Food Authority (NFA).
The government earlier offered the property for P13 billion but has received a proposal to buy it for P19 billion.
Reports said property developers Ayala Land Inc., SM Group, Robinsons Land Corp., Megaworld Corp. and Filinvest Land Inc. have signified interest to buy the FTI property.
The previous administration had pushed for privatization of some properties to boost revenues and address budget gap.
Relatively, Purisima said they were also still considering selling several Navy properties like its headquarters along Roxas Blvd. in Manila.
“We are still studying the possibility of bidding out the property of the Navy,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Finance chief said they were still studying on whether to implement Lateral Attrition Law this year.
Under this law, offices of the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue that are able to meet their targets will be given rewards that include cash while officials of the agencies that failed to meet their collection goals by at least 7.5 percent would be dismissed from service.
Purisima said they are “still in the process of studying it” since the “comprehensive information management system is still not finished.”
“We have a lot of time anyway. We implement the attrition about three months in the year because we still wait for the reports to come it,” he said.
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