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Philippines
Thursday, March 28, 2024

PSALM doubles proceeds from privatization of assets to P72b

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State-run Power Sector Asset and Liabilities Management Corp. said proceeds from the privatization of its assets more than doubled to P71.97 billion in 2019 on the back of collection efficiency and real property sale.

“PSALM’s total privatization proceeds in 2019 is way higher than the total proceeds in 2018 which was at P33.34 billion,” PSALM president Irene Garcia said.

Garcia attributed the significant increase in the agency’s privatization proceeds to the sale of real property assets, efficient collection of independent power producer administrator lease payments and aggressive collection of past delinquent power accounts.

“For 2020, we will aggressively work on privatizing the remaining NPC [National Power Corp.] assets and raising more privatization revenues,” she said.

PSALM manages the assets and liabilities of NPC as mandated by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, the law which restructured the power sector.

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Garcia said PSALM was bent on privatizing the 650-megawatt Malaya Thermal Power Plant and its land in Barangay Malaya, Pililla, Rizal in April this year.

PSALM is bidding the Malaya power plant facility for the third time with the bid opening scheduled on April 15.

Garcia earlier said PSALM was able to reduce the outstanding financial obligation of NPC to P416 billion by end-October from P449 billion in 2018.

“Note that the obligation transferred to PSALM was at a high of P1.24 trillion, plus the P16 billion loans of electric cooperatives with NEA [National Electrification Administration] assumed by PSALM,” Garcia said.

She said PSALM allowed flexible payment schemes to encourage entities and electric cooperatives with non-current/delinquent accounts to viably settle their outstanding obligations.

Garcia said that through restructuring agreements and special payment agreement schemes, PSALM put less pressure on their cashflows while allowing them to improve their operations.

She said PSALM was able to collect P2.617 billion in non-current arrears from various entities.

Garcia also said PSALM achieved a collection efficiency of 93.7 percent.  

“The uncollected accounts are those from LASURECO [Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative] and MAGELCO [Maguindanao Electric Cooperative] and we have been closely coordinating with the DOE on how this matter may be resolved to lessen the financial exposure to PSALM,” she said.

Alena Mae S. Flores

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