MIAA ends NAIA-3 contract with Japanese firm

MANILA, Philippines – The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has decided to terminate the services of Japanese firm Takenaka Corp. as contractor of the controversial Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal III.

Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza, chairman of the MIAA board of directors, said the board, in a meeting last Wednesday, decided to end the contract of Takenaka for the remaining incomplete portion of the airport construction said to be about two percent of the project; and for the structural rehabilitation work on the mothballed facility.

Mendoza revealed that MIAA was already zeroing in on a contractor to replace Takenaka from three or four groups that were eyed.

“There are already negotiations with a (another) contractor. We’re just getting clearance from the Government Procurement Policy Board and we already have an opinion from the SolGen that we can do it via negotiation,” Mendoza told The STAR.

He said the (new) contractor was a Singaporean firm that has a solid track record in international airport construction.

“They have done a lot of airport projects,” Mendoza said, but declined to identify the company.

Takenaka was earlier suspended by MIAA as contractor of the airport project due to its refusal to recognize the findings of two foreign construction experts recently commissioned to check the facility after a portion of its ceiling collapsed in March 2006.

The structural integrity inspection was conducted by Ove Arup and TCGI Engineers, which both recommended the postponement of government plans to hold a soft opening of the facility last year upon finding serious structural defects.

Takenaka is actually the sub-contractor of Philippine International Air Terminals, Co. (PIATCO), the consortium that bagged the build-operate-transfer contract with the government to build a new international terminal to replace the NAIA Terminal I in the mid-1990s.

The Supreme Court nullified the PIATCO contract in 2004 after finding that amendments on the original contract were grossly disadvantageous to the government. This resulted in the government’s takeover of the facility, through the DOTC, and the start of expropriation proceedings.