THE Department of Energy (DoE) has gained the backing of the Department of Finance (DoF) for its request to amend the terms of the contract relating to electric tricycles (e-trikes) and allow private sector participation in the costly project that has remained without takers.

“(DoF’s) internal legal (experts) have already approved our amendments,” said DoE Assistant Secretary Leonido J. Pulido III on Wednesday on the sidelines of the DoE’s budget hearing at the Senate.

He earlier said that the DoE had asked the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to tweak the terms of the loan to revive the project, but on a significantly scaled-down basis. The DoF and the ADB are the signatories of the contract.

The program, initiated by the previous DoE leadership, was originally designed for the use of local government units, but they were reluctant to buy the vehicles because of their cost and the process involved in the acquisition.

After much delay, the present DoE officials decided to roll out 3,000 e-trikes out of the original 100,000, lowering the project cost to P1.73 billion from P21.672 billion. The funding was sourced by the past administration through a loan from the ADB.

The new contract terms seek to expand the project to make it available to the private sector.

“We’re hoping to sign the amendments of the loan agreement within a week or two,” Mr. Pulido said.

“The DoE is not a partner to those contracts. The signatories of the contract are the DoF and the ADB. But since the DoE is the implementing and executing agency, we were the ones who first essentially realized that the deployment model is flawed and it has to be modified,” he said.

He previously said that although the cost of the vehicle remains the same, the private sector has more leeway and can be more flexible in adopting a business model that can work. — Victor V. Saulon

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