By Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine
Star) | Updated September 2, 2013 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - Ayala Corp., one
of the country’s biggest conglomerates, has so far completed 30 percent of the
P2 billion Daang Hari South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) Project and is still aiming
to finish the venture by mid-2014 despite opposition from a property firm, a
ranking official said.
“It’s now 30 percent completed. We
will go full blast once the rainy season is over. We’re still targeting middle
of 2014,” said Eric Francia, Ayala Corp. managing director.
He also said the company would push through
with the building of a mall within the project area, saying that it was part of
the concession agreement.
“That’s stipulated in the concession
agreement. When we bid for this we had to look at non-toll revenues and we
clarified that with the government before the bid and this was available to all
bidders. The mall has always been in the concession agreement,” Francia said.
Businessman Manuel Villar’s Vista Land
& Lifescapes has asked the government to re-bid the project, saying that
Ayala revised the original design it submitted to the government. Vista Land
plans to build a mall in the same area.
However, Francia said that there have
been no changes in the design submitted by the Ayala Group.
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“Before the bid, we already had the
design submitted for the SLEX interface and mall and both of these were
clarified before the bid,” he said.
He said Ayala Corp. intends to sit
down with concerned parties to clarify thorny issues.
Touted as the first major
infrastructure project bid out under the Aquino administration’s Public-Private
Partnership (PPP) program, the Daang-Hari-SLEX project involves the
construction of a P2 billion highway that will connect Cavite to Metro Manila.
It seeks to decongest traffic in
Cavite, Las Pinas and Muntinlupa as well as nearby areas.
In 2010, the Aquino administration
launched the PPP program as its flagship project for infrastructure
investments.
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