Tomas remains very selective in accepting locators at South Road Properties

The Freeman
Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Cebu City might be saddled with multi-million worth of debts but Mayor Tomas Osmeña stood firm over his decision to be strictly selective in accepting from any source, lease or purchase proposals of part of the 295-hectare South Road Properties.

“We’re not just selling a piece of land but development,” Osmeña said in a press conference, emphasizing that he would not just accept any proposals from any business or institution.

The mayor said, “We’re very picky with who we’re dealing with,” explaining that the city will only deal with people who can maintain the standards that has been set for the SRP.

Osmeña admitted that the city has already received several proposals but most of these were turned down. One of the rejected proposals was putting up a stockyard, he said.

He said he would not like the SRP to be like a “junkyard” similar to what happened to the Mandaue reclamation project. “I have to balance it. If I want to be lazy about it, I will just chop it up and sell it,” said the mayor.

So far, there have already been at least three locators, all of which are real estate firms and each of which had proposed to purchase at least seven hectares of the SRP.

These locators still have to undergo scrutiny to ensure that they can create “impact” for SRP and the Cebu economy, and to make the SRP more “marketable” similar to what the Mactan Export Processing Zone and call center businesses have done.

Meanwhile, Osmeña said the city has been negotiating with the Commission on Audit on the legal aspects in dealing with offers from businesses. The city is open to bidding requirements and processes but the mayor said these might “destroy the marketability of SRP.”

“We tried to avoid bidding just like the Philippine Economic Zone Authority,” the mayor said COA would not allow the city to follow the procedures undertaken by PEZA-registered companies.

He said that the city should be “very sensitive to the market price condition. We still bid out but on some bases.”

The city needs to raise P500 million this year to pay its loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation that was spent in developing the SRP. — Liv G. Campo/RAEType rest of the post here