The Iloilo City Government has inked a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center for the three priority projects.

Mayor Jerry P. Treñas, through a resolution, was authorized by the City Council to sign the MOA on behalf of the city government.

The MOA signing with the PPP Center, represented by its undersecretary and executive director, Ferdinand Pecson, was done on Wednesday, Aug. 14.

The agreement will provide a framework for cooperation and coordination with the goal of developing a robust pipeline projects such as the improvement of the city-run slaughterhouse, public markets and solid waste management.

“We are very excited about this. I, together with the vice mayor, the councilors, and the department heads are looking forward towards this relationship with the PPP Center because we are interested first, in entering into an arrangement with the private sector partner for the slaughterhouse, waste into energy, and also for our markets as long as we will be able to maintain the upkeep and the rentals for the ground floor,” Treñas said.

The undertaking, according to the mayor, would allow the city to free a portion of the budget which they will be able to use for other social projects that are beneficial for the people.

Pecson said he was also excited to work with the city government.

“We understand that time is also of the essence, we had to move very quickly, show results very quickly, and what I can say mayor is my team dito sa PPP Center, they are here already and they are also eager to start working with you,” he said.

“This is just the beginning, you will see more of us, there’s really a lot of work to be done but with everyone’s support we will be succeeding,” Pecson assured.

Meanwhile, Mia G. Sebastian, Deputy executive director of PPP center, explained that the PPP center will be assisting Iloilo City in the development of its priority PPP projects.

The center will specifically provide its in- house employees and officials who will be assisted by their consultants in order to develop feasibility study and business cases on the priority infrastructure projects of the city.

“Once the feasibility studies has been finished or conducted, we will help Iloilo city in the preparation in what we call the terms of reference for bidding out to the private sector. This is really critical so that once this project is bidded out to the private sector, the Iloilo city will be given the chance to evaluate the best value that the private sector is offering to the iloilo city local government,” Sebastian said.

She added that it may take them three to eight months to complete the study depending on the complexity.

Once it is done, it will be submitted to the City Council for approval before it will be bidded out to the public sector./IMT