Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. said Tuesday the construction of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway is one-year behind schedule due to government failure to deliver right of way requirements for the project.
“The major hurdle we are facing is the right-of-way for a number of key areas, including Villamor Airbase, NAIA Road, Tambo and locations along the Quirino to Roxas Boulevard stretch, which government has yet to deliver,” Alec Cruz, head of tollway project of San Miguel Holdings Corp.
He said the construction works at NAIA Expressway were behind schedule by about 12 months.
Cruz said ROW issues had made it “very difficult” to complete the project before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Manila.
He said the Public Works Department must deliver about 20 percent to 25 percent of the ROW requirements to complete the project by October.
The NAIA Expressway was about 40 percent completed.
If the government failed to deliver the ROW, Cruz said the project would likely be completed by April 2016 from the original target of October this year.
“We’d also like to ask for the cooperation of utility companies such as Meralco [Manila Electric Co.], the telecommunications companies and businesses in the area whose facilities need to be relocated to make way for the construction,” Cruz said.
He said San Miguel also added a new contractor to build the Parañaque River section to increase the chance of substantially completing the project before the Apec meeting.
San Miguel tapped Matiere SAS to construct the Parañaque River side section of the NAIA Expressway.
The Parañaque Riverside section will be built using a Uni-Bridge Modular Solution system, a steel modular bridge system pre-designed and prefabricated in France.
The P15.52-billion NAIA Expressway project is a four-lane, 7.15-kilometer elevated expressway that aims to provide easy access to and from the three NAIA terminals and link the Skyway and the Manila-Cavite Toll Expressway.
The project will interconnect the South Luzon Expressway-Skyway to the Cavitex, Macapagal Boulevard, and the Entertainment City of state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.