The House Transportation Oversight Committee on the Roll-Off Roll-On port system spearheaded by Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has moved to stop the Cebu Port Authority from collecting questionable port fees from a Cebu port.
During the Oversight hearing Tuesday in Tabuelan, Cebu, attended by Arroyo and Cebu Representatives Peter Unabia, chairman of the oversight committee, Gwen Garcia and Benhur Salimbangon, the Committee found out that the CPA had been for the past five years questionably collecting its share from the port fees in Tabuelan without any legal basis.
It was established that in 2004, the CPA and the local government of Tabuelan entered into a 10-year compromise agreement that allowed the CPA to collect a 40-percent share from the fees collected in Tabuelan.
The local government of Tabuelan had formally asked the CPA to lower its share collection to 20 percent upon the expiration of the compromise agreement in 2014 but it has yet to be acted upon by the body.
In the meantime, despite the lapse of the compromise agreement, the CPA has continued to collect its 40-percent share of the revenues.
This prompted Garcia to express dismay over the arrangement, saying it had unduly caused sufferings to the people of Tabuelan who had been deprived of the income to which they were legally entitled to as early as 2014.
“This is a strange situation we are finding ourselves in. You continue to collect on the 10-year MOA that has long expired, five years ago. Are you not estopped now? Why are you collecting? How is this justified?” Garcia said.
Garcia said since 2004 when the compromise agreement expired, the CPA had unduly collected some P35 million from Tabuelan without any legal or documentary basis to do so.
She then moved to stop CPA from further collecting its 40-percent share until a new agreement is forged between the agency and the local government of Tabuelan.
This was adopted by members of the committee, including Arroyo.
The oversight committee on the Ro-Ro has conducted the hearing in Tabuelan after it was reported during the oversight hearings that the Tabuelan port was one of the ports charging stevedoring and handling fees without any of such services being carried out.
Arroyo said the undue fees being collected by CPA from Tabuelan was the reason why such fees were being imposed.
With the cessation of collection of the CPA share from the income of Tabuelan, the local government had promised to lower its fees and discontinue its collection of stevedoring and handling fees.
Arroyo has been holding the oversight committee hearings on the RO-RO in various parts of the country in a bid to revive and fully maximize the RO-RO port system which she started when she was president.