MTD Philippines ready to invest P5B for regional govt centers

INFRASTRUCTURE development firm MTD Philippines Inc. is investing roughly P5 billion for the construction of regional government centers in the Southern Tagalog region and in Leyte.

“We are pushing through with the development of regional government centers because local governments are just renting office spaces. The government does not have funds to construct their own offices, so what we are doing is we are replicating the Putrajaya experience in Malaysia, wherein all offices are located in one hub,” MTD Philippines President Isaac S. David said in a chance interview.

He said his firm is pursuing the creation of a one-stop-shop government office, which will house at least 54 regional offices in the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) region. He said the initial cost for the project is pegged at about P1 billion.

“We also submitted an unsolicited proposal to do the Leyte Regional Government Center, so we’re offering to build a center without cash out from the local government,” David said, noting that the project costs roughly P4 billion.

He said the firm will turn over the facility to the local government after a 30-year concession period.

The company is expecting to recover its investment over the same period.

“The local government’s decisions for the projects are much faster compared to the national level, which has to go through the approval of the National Economic and Development Authority and other branches,” David pointed out, referring to public-private partnership (PPP) ventures.

“So, local governments, I think, are performing very well when it comes to PPP,” he stressed.

MTD Philippines is the local investments arm of Malaysian infrastructure giant AlloyMTD Group. The said local unit is participating in the bidding of several key infrastructure projects of the Aquino administration, including the P64.9-billion Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite Extension Project and the P35.42-billion Cavite Laguna Expressway Project.