Press Release
22 March 2013
The Department of Education’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for School Infrastructure Project (PSIP) Phase I is the lone entry from the ASEAN to the internationally acclaimed Partnerships Awards 2013. The project has been shortlisted for the ‘Best Pathfinder Project’ category.
Partnership Awards is an annual event organized by the Partnerships Bulletin and PPP Bulletin International to recognize and reward outstanding achievements in PPP worldwide. In recent years, most awardees are entries from Europe and the Americas.
PPP Center Executive Director Cosette Canilao said that, “The shortlisting of DepEd’s PSIP-I to the Partnerships Awards 2013 is a recognition from the global PPP community that we are on the right path.”
The ‘Best Pathfinder’ category is a recognition given to public infrastructure projects that demonstrate the best ‘first of its kind’ in a sector or region.
For this year, only entries and nominations for deals signed between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012 were accepted. Industry professionals representing both the public and private sector will judge the entries. The awarding ceremony will take place at Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London on 23 May 2013.
DepEd’s PSIP I is the Philippine’s first PPP social infrastructure project. It aims to supplement the current initiatives and program of the government to address the current shortage of public school buildings nationwide.
The project was awarded to Citicore-Megawide Consortium and Bright Future Educational Facilities, Inc., who will construct 9,301 one-storey and two-storey classrooms with provisions for fixtures and furniture. The school buildings will be built in in various sites in Regions I, III and IV-A. Structured under a Build-Lease-Transfer (BLT) modality, government shall issue annual lease payments to the private proponents for a period of 10 years.
As of 27 February 2013, DepEd has issued Notices to Proceed (NTP) to cover 713 schools out of the total 2,496. It is expected that the construction of school buildings will be completed by January 2014.
To further supplement efforts to address classroom backlogs in the country, DepEd is now bidding the second phase of PSIP. With PSIP II, 10, 679 classrooms, including furniture and toilets, will be constructed in 5,033 public schools in 14 regions nationwide.
Both the PSIP I and II projects are recipient of the Project Development and Monitoring Facility (PDMF) managed by the PPP Center. Under the PDMF, the DepEd was given funding support used to procure in terms of procuring transaction advisors who provided technical assistance in the bid process management including the preparation of bid documents and contracts and assistance until financial close.
Aside from managing PDMF, the PPP Center also provides technical advisory, project facilitation services, and capacity building support to implementing agencies and local government units in ensuring that all PPP projects are developed and implemented effectively.
Partnerships Bulletin and PPP Bulletin International are UK-based organizations involved in magazine publication and websites that provide in-depth updates on partnership working between the public and private sector. Both are sources of information on international PPPs particularly on legislation, regulation, working procedure and market potential. With more than 15 years of exposure in the industry, they have been recognized as credible institutions in terms of private finance initiative (PFI) and PPPs.
The full shortlist in the various categories of the Partnerships Awards 2013 is posted at the Partnerships Bulletin website: www.partnershipsbulletin.com/awards/.
